macaronic wordplay

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:38 AM -0500 12/28/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
>Heard on the weekend on, I think, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", after
>something about a Harvard basketball team, from Amy Dickinson:
>
>"As it were -- that's their motto."
>
>And I went
>    tick... tick... BOOM!
>as (to mix metaphors) the penny dropped:
>
>1. Harvard's motto, "Veritas", in the classical pronunciation: /'wEritas/
>2. Split and reverse order: "as it were"
>
>Mark Mandel
>
This one really puzzled me on first read-through, partly because of
the obscurity of the algorithm (pronounce as in classical Latin,
which Harvard's motto rarely is, and then reverse order of syllables
and treat each as an English word?) and partly because I read it as
having been observed by *Emily* Dickinson, who wouldn't have been a
close follower of Harvard basketball.  Whatever.

LH

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