The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0966  Friday, 5 May 2000.

[1]     From:   Gabriel Egan <
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        Date:   Thursday, 4 May 2000 17:04:07 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0958 Re: Bardic Ignorance

[2]     From:   Kevin De Ornellas <
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        Date:   Thursday, 04 May 2000 16:37:35 GMT
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0958 Re: Bardic Ignorance

[3]     From:   Jean Peterson <
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        Date:   Thursday, 4 May 2000 15:42:16 -0400 (EDT)
        Subj:   Ignorance?


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Gabriel Egan <
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Date:           Thursday, 4 May 2000 17:04:07 +0100
Subject: 11.0958 Re: Bardic Ignorance
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0958 Re: Bardic Ignorance

Arthur Lindley asked

>I may be misremembering, but doesn't Carol Vorderman have a fairly
>brilliant-as these things currently go-degree from Cambridge?

A colleague from Cambridge who just left the room claimed to know that
she couldn't handle the Cambridge maths course and so settled on
engineering, in which she got a third class degree.

Being unable to do a maths degree is nothing to be ashamed of.
Vorderman's television celebrity is founded on an ability to factorize
in her head numbers up to 1000. I believe Wordsworth knew of a horse who
could manage the same trick, but only up to 25.

Gabriel Egan

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Kevin De Ornellas <
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Date:           Thursday, 04 May 2000 16:37:35 GMT
Subject: 11.0958 Re: Bardic Ignorance
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0958 Re: Bardic Ignorance

>I may be misremembering, but doesn't Carol Vorderman have a fairly
>brilliant-as these things currently go-degree from Cambridge?
>
>Arthur Lindley

I heard that she had been awarded a Michelle Fowler (a Third).

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Jean Peterson <
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Date:           Thursday, 4 May 2000 15:42:16 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:        Ignorance?

>Just a small corollary to that, on Tuesday's American celebrity version
>of "Millionaire", Dana Carvey was asked "In the 1998 film, Shakespeare
>In Love, at which theater does Romeo and Juliet premier?"  He didn't
>know, so he polled the audience and they of course responded "the
>Globe", which was wrong.

I would quibble at calling this "ignorance."  For an audience of
non-specialists, referring to a film that opened close to 2 years ago,
"the Globe" is a pretty reasonable guess.

Jean Peterson
Associate Professor of English
Bucknell University