I say persona, he says personum?

[Benjamin Barrett]

It sounds like to me he had a ribald personality in public, and while he
sometimes acted in private in a way more immature than that personality,
he usually acted in a way that was greater.

My take is that the meanings are pretty much the same (except for "the
sum of his majesty's speech"). BB

Joel S. Berson wrote:
> Did Klein mean that Thompson had more than one ribald personality, or
> just one which could be summed?
>
> As for the examples, aren't they using "sum" in a different sense?  "
> 5. The total amount or quantity, the totality, aggregate, or whole
> (of something immaterial)."  I don't mind "the sum of one's
> character", but I would not choose to say "the sum of one's personality".
>
> Joel
>
> At 11/18/2007 04:42 PM, BB wrote:
>
>> To me, "the sum of one's character" sounds fine. Here are some
>> supporting Googits:
>>
>> BB
>>
>> "I always think that, while we come into the world with certain
>> innate talents, you really become the sum of your environment," Beard
>> said in his Camp Hill office, a Nittany Lion Head carving in the
>> window. (http://www.ed.psu.edu/news/beard.asp)
>>
>> The sum of his majesty's speech (i.e., summation): http://
>> books.google.com/books?id=op0MAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=%22the
>> +sum+of+his%22+-parts+-
>> oddities&source=web&ots=MQ_eJGJ08O&sig=Ox_QDyJPXU6JeeGKaP5tr8_hnxk
>>
>> "...the sum of his misery" (http://books.google.com/books?
>> id=01E4AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=%22the+sum+of+his%22+-parts+-
>> oddities&source=web&ots=MVepAZSoIj&sig=DNRQRJcnIk643RwbeMK4yPXT-NA)
>>
>> "Fanny and Alexander" (1982): The director famously called this
>> family saga "the sum total of my life as filmmaker." (http://
>> www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/07/30/
>> highlights_of_bergmans_career/?page=2)
>>
>> On Nov 18, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>>
>>> Joe Klein ("a columnist for Time magazine and the author, most
>>> recently, of 'Politics Lost'") writes:
>>>
>>> "Hunter Thompson was always much more, and sometimes a bit less, than
>>> the sum of his ribald public persona."
>>>
>>> I suppose he might have written "totality", but for me "sum" requires
>>> a plural.  Perhaps his next book should be "Plurals Lost".
>>>

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