Churls and Trifles

The greatest prize of the nitwitted churl is in the finding of little mistakes in great intellectual works. He makes much of these mistakes, and that is his mark: that he makes much of little. The finding of a minor solecism in a masterpiece, for instance, affords him the purchase by which he can maintain a critical stance thereagainst, even though that mistake is so minor as to warrant no such stance. By his findings he can remain "unimpressed" and even "sceptical", the two routes by which he believes a reputation for hard-headedness can be best achieved. He is seduced into thinking that if he can point out the mistakes of a clever man, he himself must be clever.

.....He is not. Any fool can spot a simple slip. I do not mean to suggest that one refrain from pointing out minor mistakes; only that one refrain from making much of them. I say all this rather in my own defence; for I am about to point out a mistake which might look minor:

There is only one phrase in literary history that fills me with as much dread as the M word [The Mabinogian]: Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. I loathe Old English and only chose it as an option at university because I fancied the professor of medieval studies.

(Jaci Stephen, (Television Review), The Mail on Sunday, 31st July 2005.)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English work, not an Old English one. The point is that this is not a minor mistake in its context. Ms Stephen hopes to show, in that affectedly off-hand way that journalists frequently employ, that she knows something of Old English and Middle English -- and manages thereby to show her ignorance of both. Now, I do not mean to imply that everyone ought to know the difference between Old English and Middle English. On the contrary, one might fairly remain ignorant of the two and still deserve to be called educated. But if one is going to mention them at all, one ought at least to know what they are.
.....I maintain that it is not churlish to point this out. If it were a great work, and the mistake minor to the whole thereof, it would indeed be churlish of me to make much of the mistake. But it is not a great work, and the mistake is not minor to the whole. It is an egregious mistake to anyone with even a hazy idea of Old and Middle English. It is a mistake, moreover, by which the author hoped to show something.

.....By now suspicions should be forming in your head: Why all this justifying preamble only to attack a typical piece of journalistic ignorance and pretence? Why so much fuss over such a trifling work? After all, the scribbling of this television reviewer is not considered by anyone to be a great intellectual work. What's the point? Well, you have me -- I am guilty of something. Against me it could be said that I am sniping at an easy target. Perhaps that is as lowly as churlishness. Well, be damned and so be it! Every man has his trifling pastimes, and every man has those little things that annoy him greatly. Besides, I believe that easy targets should get it in the neck every once in a while, lest they become bolder and more numerous.