Thursday, January 1, 2004

Cacoethes Scribendi Comments

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If all the trees in all the woods were men;
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea
...
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Oliver Wendell Holmes
COMMENTS
Vanessa Brown 17 January 2007

It may be true that the title is 'The wickedness of writing' but I have always thought the title to be directly from latin translation as 'The insatiable urge to write'

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Michael Shepherd 03 February 2006

The title is a Latinisation of the Greek term 'kakos-ethes'. 'Kakos is 'bad' and 'ethes' is character or disposition. So it's taken as 'wickedness' and the title means 'The wickedness {bad ethics} of writing'.

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Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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