same place -- same time [was: Vlad and Dracula]

[Laurence Horn]

On Jun 1, 2014, at 11:34 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> They -- the Impaler and the Count; Clark and
> Superman -- always *are* in the same place at the
> same time.  It's just that only one or the other
> is visible to any observer at any one time.  See Schrödinger's cat.
>
> Thus the answer to the question "Have you ever
> seen X and Y in the same place at the same time?"
> will be "No."  But the researchers are asking the
> wrong question.  It should be "Have X and Y both
> been seen in the same place at the same time?"
>
> It is no coincidence that Schrödinger's cat and
> Superman both appeared around the same time --
> circa 1935.  But not in the same place.

Plus nobody puts Superman in a box.  (Unless, of course Schrödinger's box was Kryptonite-lined.)

LH

> The
> influence of the Copenhagen interpretation of
> quantum mechanics on Siegel and Shuster has yet to be properly analyzed.
>
> Joel
>
> At 6/1/2014 10:33 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> At 5/31/2014 08:25 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>> JB, quoting the NYTimes:
>>> "Have you ever seen Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler in the same place
>>> at the same time?"
>>>
>>> It seems to me that this is a formula -- "Have you ever seen X and Y
>>> together"?, or, as here, "in the same place at the same time?" -- that I
>>> have encountered from time to time of late, usually written with a
>>> humorously raised eyebrow.
>>> Any evidence of its origin?
>>>
>>> GAT
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 10:15 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > The famous Margalit Fox -- check the ADS-L archives -- has written
>>> > another elegant and sly obituary, this time about Radu Florescu, who
>>> > died on May 18.  In the NYTimes -- at least the New England Edition
>>> > -- May 29, page B17.  (For unknown reasons, the on-line Times won't
>>> > give it to me.  Search results for, say, "Dracula", Newest first, are
>>> > to say the least peculiar; and a search for "Margalit Fox"
>>> > produces  zero results in the Past 7 Days.)  Anyhoo, juicy excerpts:
>>> >
>>> > [Opening paragraphs:]
>>> >      "Have you ever seen Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler in the
>>> > same place at the same time?
>>> >      "Of course not, and that, according to Radu Florescu, is
>>> > precisely the point: The two men, he argued, were one and the same."
>>> > ...
>>> >      "By day, Professor taught at Boston College, where, at his
>>> > death, he was an emeritus professor of history ..."
>>> > [One intervening paragraph.]
>>> >      "But thanks to his moonlight job, Professor Florescu was for
>>> > four decades also one of the world's leading experts in matters Dracular."
>>> >
>>> > [This is the minimally relevant bit:  Dracular (adj.) not in
>>> > OED.  But 'll bet the professor and the count also were never seen in
>>> > the same place at the same time.]
>>> > ...
>>> >      "As he would learn in the course of his research, he had a
>>> > family connection to Vlad, who was known familiarly if not quite
>>> > fondly as Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler. A Florescu ancestor was
>>> > said to have married Vlad's brother,
>>> felicitously named Radu the Handsome."
>>> > ...
>>> >      "Both Vlad and Count Dracula displayed marked criminal
>>> > proclivities: Vlad was know for dispatching his Ottoman foes (as may
>>> > as 100,000 in some accounts) with sharpened stakes. Dracula, who did
>>> > not care for stakes, favored a more direct approach."
>>> >
>>> > [And the concluding paragraph:]
>>> >      "If, in his second career, Professor Florescu risked the
>>> > opprobrium of some ivory-tower colleagues, he seemed unperturbed. At
>>> > Dracula conventions around the world -- and there are many -- he
>>> > sometimes materialized wearing a cape, a reliable indication that
>>> > when it came to Stoker's sanguinary protagonist, Professor Florescu
>>> > did not mind sticking his neck out."
>>> >
>>> > RIP.
>>> >
>>> > Joel
>>> >
>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> George A. Thompson
>>> The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
>>> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
>>> Univ. Pr., 1998..
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org