Il Pastor Fido and John Milton

[decantor]

This quote is interesting - from Sir Thomas Browne (I think) ---

Flat and flexible truths are beat out by every hammer ; but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his armour.

"Achilles his armour" would presumably be written in modern English as "Achilles's armour". But I do think the apostrophe, whether of omission or possession, is still useful to the reader in delivering clarity of meaning. After all, if writing is no more than the representation of speech sounds, we would not only revise our spelling tradishuns, but also reverttoomittingthespacesbetweenwords.

[ardcarp]

we would not only revise our spelling tradishuns, but also reverttoomittingthespacesbetweenwords.

Anyone remember the Initial Teaching Alphabet? That really caught on.

[David Samuels]

Since this thread's title led me to believe that this might be a discussion about Il pastor fido, I'd like to put in my two penn'orth but not before offering the following question and answer:

Q: Who started the Pedants' Revolt?
A: Which Tyler

Having got that out of my system, I went to tthe performance of IPF at SGHS on Friday and very good it was, too. Sadly, Lucy Crowe was 'indisposed' but her replacement did a fantastic job at 18 hours' notice. Interestingly, the performance was billed as the launch of the Harmonia Mundi recording but none were on sale. Just as well I got my copy a 20 days ago at Wigmore Hall -- some recompense for having had to sit through 3 Shostakovitch string quartets!

[doversoul1]

David
Sorry to have misled you. The thread title was intended to refer to the latest Early Music Show which is about
some of it's musical offsprings, including music by Monterverdi, Schütz and and Sigismondo d'India.

The CD of the performance you went to was discussed on CD Review. All the same, I hope this thread will lead you to the programme on Saturday’s EMS. You will not be disappointed.

I know now how to get more response’s to thread’s on the EMS board (this has got that out of my system).

[David Samuels]

doversoul

You didn't mislead me in the least -- I know what these threads can be -- and I did hear both EMS and the preceding CD Review. What the thread did do, however, was to give me an opportunity to trot out an old but valued joke.

[doversoul1]

doversoul

You didn't mislead me in the least -- I know what these threads can be -- and I did hear both EMS and the preceding CD Review. What the thread did do, however, was to give me an opportunity to trot out an old but valued joke.