With thanks to the Financial Times for reminding us of this deathless quotation:
A gentleman need not know Latin but he should at least have forgotten it.
The words of James Brander Matthews (1852 – 1929), a professor at Columbia whose studies spanned both English and French literature, as well as the history of the English language. His short tract on The Englishing of French Words was published in 1921 by the Society for Pure English.
David Rundle is an intellectual and cultural historian of the Renaissance across Europe, including the British Isles. He is Lecturer in Latin and Palaeography in the Centre of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Kent. He is the author of The Renaissance Reform of the Book and Britain, and is working on the catalogue of the manuscripts of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is also Managing Editor of Medium Ævum. Post-nominals are not his thing but if you insist, they are MA DPhil (Oxon), FSA, FRHistS, SFHEA.
bonæ litteræ: occasional writing from David Rundle, Renaissance scholar
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