It's not about the house.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Sheesh, This One Was HARD.

[ed. Imagine I'm Bernadette Peters, and I'm standing on stage with my hands behind my back, blowing hair out of my eyes when I'm allowed to take a breath. Which is not often... ]

Okay, so…

If I put an ibid. where an ibid. shouldn't go, is it okay to op. cit. it or is that not apropos? Su sought to serve solutions so she said some stuff she know, but her ibid. info irked me insomuch as I was wro—

I was wr—
I was…

“That cannot be the case,” I cogitated. “It’s not so. I can’t be incorrect.” And I commenced my cocky crow. “Can anybody out there tell me what I want to know? Can I op. cit. an ibid.? Or do you not give a fo?”

Crickets

Janice (known as Nana) thought I meant to say ditto. Charlie agreed with her, and then she cited Chicago. They were both right of course, you know, as far as ditto goes, but when I dittoed ibid. I was trying to be droll.

Funny, in a fuh-fuh sort of way…

Khurston and the Other Bear and cousin DonnaStaf, had no idea whate’er I meant but they all made me laugh. Braveheart seemed to understand, he disagreed with Chuck, and they both read Chicago, so I ask you: what the—?

Fuh-fuh funny?

That brings us round again, our big end back where we began. It’s down to me v. Su (don’t call her Susan or Suzanne). Consensus seems to be (although no one’s explained it quite): it really doesn’t matter, we ain’t either got it right.

Ready?

Big finish...

Let me get my breath here...

Okay:


Ignoratio elenchi, obscurum per obscurius (o.p.o. est idem quod ignotum per ignotius). Per reductio ad absurdum, quod erat demonstrandum. Id est: illegitimi (et/an res) non carborunduuuuum!

Applause...

Thank you ! Thank you
very much!


[ed. again: And tomorrow, we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming of me fixing up the house and bitching about it, I swear to god.]

3 comments:

su said...

My Latin has oxidized since HS some 47 years ago I think!
However I hold firm to my rule. Ibid an Ibid, but not an op cit. One can refer back to the previous reference if said ref. is in direct line. Once the reference is not in order, the information, credit, biblio must be restated. I stand on my grave with it in the Berkshires!

su said...

Use of ibid. and op. cit.:
Gibaldi (313) does NOT recommend the use of these old-fashioned abbreviations: ibid. (from the Latin ibidem meaning "in the same place") and op. cit. (from the Latin opere citato meaning "in the work cited.")

For Footnote or Endnote citations, if you should see the term ibid. being used, it just means that the citation is for the second mention of the same work with no intervening entries:

Janice said...

Oh, Bravo! a tour de force! Encore!