So Long as the Declaration Guards
Such Johnsonian periods are quite beyond his comprehension, and no doubt the fact is at least partly to blame for the neglect upon which the Declaration has fallen in recent years. When, during the Wilson-Palmer saturnalia of oppressions, specialists in liberty began protesting that the Declaration plainly gave the people the right to alter the goverment under which they lived and even to abolish it altogether, they encountered the utmost incredulity. On more than one occasion, in fact, such an exegete was tarred and feathered by the shocked members of the American Legion, even after the Declaration had been read to them. What ailed them was that they could not understand its eighteenth century English. I make the suggestion that its circulation among such patriotic men, translated into the language they use every day, would serve to prevent, or, at all events, to diminish that sort of terrorism.
From the Preamble to HL Mencken’s translation of the Declaration of Independence into, if you will, Red State English. (Via Semiquark.)
Comment by Gary Farber —
July 5, 2005 @ 1:28 am
I’m not sure Mencken’s “boob-oisie” translates well into “Red State,” speaking of translations from one time to another, but his actual translation is mildly amusing. I always find Mencken a bit irritating, though, even when appreciating the virtues of a piece of his, due to his inextricablely non-stop sense of personal superiority, which always bugs me, doubtlessly at least partially because I find it so irritating when I compulsively so engage in it myself.
Comment by matthew hogan —
July 5, 2005 @ 2:34 pm
Whatever its worth, at least he was trying to fight terrorism.