WHAT IMPERTINENCE!

Passages in a foreign language may be translated by the person quoting them if no acceptable English translation of the source has been published; in this case "my translation" should be added either in parentheses following the translation or in the note identifying the source. Where a published translation is used, the title of the translation, the translator's name, and the bibliographical details should be given in a note or in the bibliography, and the relevant page number of the translation should be used in identifying the translation. The Chicago Manual of Style, 13th Edition (10.71)

From Reader #2

Oh, my, Anthony has sorely tried Papa! Just look at his disgusted mien! (Papa is very upright, you know, so he naturally recoils at arrogation of any sort.)

You see, all the Readers were assembled recently at the Meadow on a golden autumn afternoon. The fallen poplar and linden leaves were as bountiful as the blunders and botches littering the ill-written pages of Work of Human Hands.

I first inspired our party's wanton mirth when I remarked how Anthony misspelled the adopted surname name of the "fearsome" Saint Peter Damian as Damien [p. 232, Ed.]. Then we merrily laughed as Reader #4 rehearsed fresh chronicles of Anthony's slapdash work and utter estrangement from general scholarly standards.

In a low voice, he confided that the nastiest example he found occurred on p. 233: Outside of some small differences of punctuation and one or two minor changes in word order, the translations of seven different Latin Collects are identical (or nearly identical) to the translations printed in the St. Andrew Daily Missal! And nowhere does Anthony disclose to whom these translations belong!

"The renderings do not appear," whispered our #4, "to be the result of happy coincidence. To wit, 'sweetness' isn't the word most would use to translate suavitate, nor 'most dear' for dulcissimi. Likewise, 'blandishments' is certainly not the tip-of-your-tongue equivalent for illecebras (albeit quite felicitous). Nay, the similarity would seem to fly in the face of bald coincidence. Ditto for 'detaching our hearts from earthly joys' as a translation for terrenis omnibus abdicatis. "

Sickened, our gaiety dissolved. Anon, with a comforting smile, Mr. D., who loves paradoxes, broke the stunned silence when he chirped:

"Well said, and why not! Truly by the laws of chance we are bound to meet coincidence sooner or later. Why, without coincidence, the world would be as bizarre as Anthony Cekada's Blunderland." He then somewhat crinkled his brow here, scratched his chin absentmindedly, and continued, "But in the present matter, I should venture to say that statistical coincidence may not at all be at work. Yet, to be sure, we might perform a parametric statistical analysis based on a binomial or multinomial distribution..."

"That will do!" thundered Papa, who had been dourly listening to our lively chatter. He set down his shimmering glass of sherry (barely tasted), glowered, and muttered something like mee-may-TACE GO-ace. And eying us each one by one, he intoned: "No one can brook such bad form. If one does, then he is no scholar -- and certainly no gentleman."