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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, I've heard this debunking as well. Doesn't really affect the image for me, though - it's still that of a man getting his feet wetted by a greater force (whatever his apparent motivation!)
Rhubarb, I know this is not your period - but can you help?
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old hand
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old hand
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As far as I am aware:
1. King Knut was defintiely one of the better. His mal-reputation is primarily a nationalistic thingy because of his not being 'native' English (whatever that is).
2. The original, and full, form of the story is that his courtiers told him he was so powerful even the elements obeyed him, and he, wiser than they, proved that this was not the case, by setting his throne by the shoreline and commanding the tide not to wet his feet. But it did. One in the eye for the sycophants.
3. The story is almost definitely apocryphal, somewhat like Alfred and the cakes.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In reply to:
Yes, I've heard this debunking as well. Doesn't really affect the image for me, though - it's still that of a man getting his feet wetted by a greater force (whatever his apparent motivation!)
Rhubarb, I know this is not your period - but can you help?
Yes, sure - I'll jump back a thousand years from the time I virtually live in to help a friend.
The story is well documented, of KC using the implacability of the incoming tide to show his courtiers that he was but a man - if a dam' good one - and a Dane. He was not a God, but a servant of the God (or Gods - there was still afair amount of pantheism floating around in those days.) Just where it is documented, I'm not sure. Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, perhaps?
However, shanks may well be right about the apocryphal nature of the story.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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KC using the implacability of the incoming tide “That’s the way, uh, huh, uh, huh, I like it, I like it..”  Thanks, Rhu.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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However, shanks may well be right about the apocryphal nature of the story.
I was always taught the story with that caveat, in fact I was taught to assume that it was apocryphal.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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sputter, sputter, gag, gag...and me not having time to read all the posts in the last two days...this is one I really would have liked to get to.
You are right CapK. I have never, understood the quinze jours description of a fortnight. It is usually said by someone going on vacation/holiday and is vraiment stupide. I am glad it is going out of style here.
As to l'Académie Française. Good grief, they should come over here to learn a thing or two about keeping your language intact. Our government has often INVENTED words to keep from using an English one. The most notable being the translation of hamburger as hambourgeois. It meant absolutely nothing and is disregarded by EVERYONE - even the fanatical French separatists. The only time you ever see this term on a menu is right after the Language Police (yes we really do have those) have passed and threatened a restaurateur. The owner complies on one menu and changes it back on future printings.
There are scads of examples like this and it only ridicules their motives, which are basically not bad. There is even a hotline set up by the government to give the ‘accepted’ names for everything. Argh – it drives me plain crazy!!!!!
Deep breaths, deep breaths, calming down, deep breaths. Sorry folks. It just annoys the piss right outta me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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bel blared: There are scads of examples like this and it only ridicules their motives, which are basically not bad. There is even a hotline set up by the government to give the ‘accepted’ names for everything. Argh – it drives me plain crazy!!!!!
Bel, I sympathise, I really do. In the interests of political and cultural correctness, there was an effort in New Zealand a few years ago to change the place names given by us colonial types back to the original names used by the Maori (who, I'm sure, my colleague Max will refer to as tangata whenua).
I don't know so much about other areas, but I come from Otago (Otakou in Maori). Otakou is also the name of a town on the Otago Peninsula. LINZ (or whoever) came up with lists of Maori-equivalent names and printed them on maps and published them and used all sorts of approaches to gain acceptance.
However, even the local tribe, the Ngai Tahu, most of whom are as white as I am through 1.5 centuries of intermarriage, failed to use them. So there we are, two names for lots of places, but only the existing one being used ...
Things move on. Turning the clock back never really works.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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in fact I was taught to assume that it was apocryphal.
Personally, Max, I treat all history as apocryphal, and shall continue to do so until I am able to purchase Dr Who's Tardis. (Iwonder if I'll have to enable the cookies on that as well - a scary prospect if I use it to check on King Alf - epecially if I find that the story isn't apocryphal.) 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I have never, understood the quinze jours description of a fortnight. It is usually said by someone going on vacation/holiday and is vraiment stupide.
Sacre bleu! Ce n'est pas stupide, tout alors.
Consider.
A fortnight is fourteen nights, yes?
A night stretches, more or less, from sunset to dawn (or from when you go to bed 'til the time you get up - a slightly more dodgy proposition for this argument)
Normally speaking, therefore, night starts on one day and ends on the morrow.
Therefore there are fifteen DAYS involved.
Hence quinze JOURS.
Q.E.D.
Whatever else, the French are inexorably logical.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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French are inexorably logicalTrue. They figured "keep out the British mad cow disease, and feed our own cattle on the same shite..." 
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