I’m still waiting for an Oxfordian explanation of why the plays say “Oxford” but the Earl wrote “Oxenford”. For most of us this is a fairly good indication that the writers are different people!

(His reply) 

 

Gosh, this is a tough one — let me risk some strain on my brain.

Oxford thought that ‘Oxenford’ sounded better, and/or believed that it was strictly correct (as, for example, in the way most properly educated people prefer ‘uninterest’ to ‘disinterest’ when talking about a lack of interest or enthusiasm in a topic). However, he knew that the common use was ‘Oxford’ — as in the city / university / shire. And, since he also wished his authorship to remain unknown, he avoided his preferred, if idiosyncratic, usage.

Ouch — that really hurt. Call a doctor.<

 

(My response) 

 

Of course, it’s not actually based on reality.

 

De Vere and his wife did not “avoid” the spelling “Oxenford” in their own printed writings:

“Foure Epytaphes, made by the Countes of Oxenford, after the death of her young Sonne, the Lord Bulbecke, &c”

“Cardanus Comforte translated into Englishe. And published by commaundement of the right honourable the Earle of Oxenford.”

 

Both spellings *were* in common use at the time, for the city, the university and the shire as well as for the earl, and neither spelling could therefore be regarded as *so* idiosyncratic as to identify the author.

 

Nor did I make such a claim. 

 

Yes you did. You said “since he also wished his authorship to remain unknown, he avoided his preferred, if idiosyncratic, usage.” Clearly if you are right the spelling must have been so idiosyncratic as to identify the author; else why bother?

 

It’s just as well you didn’t read Law.  You capacity for making inferential judgements is woeful. There is a difference between evidence and proof.  The use of an unusual term is evidence. It is FAR from proof.

 

IF De Vere had make all references to the various earls of Oxford as ‘Earl of Oxenford’ then those members of the audience (and any readers) would have noticed it and asked ‘who uses that kind of designation’.  One very obvious answer was the current earl of Oxford. Since his literary skills were also known (at least within the aristocracy) then he would be providing good evidence that he was, in fact, the author.

 

The name of Oxford would have come up as the suspected author of works, some of which featured various earls of Oxford/Oxenford. 

 

No it wouldn’t. Everybody at the time thought what most people still think: that the works were by Shakespeare.

 

The way in which those characters were named (and presented generally) would have been studied to see if their treatment indicated Oxford’s authorship. So he would have made a point of NOT following his normal pattern.

 

Holinshed uses both spellings to refer to the same person on the same page:

 

A will dated 1524 refers to “Lands of Allsouls College of Oxenford”:

Adlington’s introduction to his 1566 translation of Apuleius:

“From Vniversity Colledge in Oxenford, the xviij. of September, 1566”

 

Roger Bacon’s “Mirror of Alchemy“, published in 1597, describes the author as “sometimes fellow of Martin College: and afterwards of Brasen-nose College in Oxenforde”:

 

William Gamage dedicates a poem published in 1621 “To the ingenious Epigrammatists Jo: Owens,  and Jo: Heath, both brought vp in New Coll: in Oxenford”:

A Cambridge epigram of 1641 begins:

“To Oxenford the King has gone

With all his mighty peers,

That hath in peace maintained us,

These five or six long years.”

 

So it is not true to say that “the common use was ‘Oxford’ — as in the city / university / shire.”

 

It may have been the more frequent use but “Oxenford” was certainly common enough that nobody would have blinked at it.

 

‘Blinking’ is not an issue.

 

“And, since he also wished his authorship to remain unknown, he avoided his preferred, if idiosyncratic, usage.”

 

Since both spellings were in common use, “Oxenford” is hardly so eccentric a spelling that it would identify the author.

 

Not a claim I made.

 

Simply not true. I know you have difficulty following other people’s arguments but here you seem to have difficulty following even your own!

 

Not to mention that your scenario has the Earl manfully resisting the version of the word he finds preferable – even when describing his own ancestors – while composing blank verse.

 

For quite obvious reasons.

 

Daniel Wright suggests “I suspect that the author of Shakespeare’s works preferred to use “Oxford” (as opposed to the Middle English “Oxenford”) when referencing the town and its liege lord, principally because it scans better.“

 

Wright is wrong; it doesn’t scan better, as the Cambridge epigram demonstrates, it merely scans differently.

 

It seems pretty clear that the situation was rather like we have today with the word “either”, with some people saying “EYE-ther”, some “EE-ther” and some using both pronunciations.

 

No.  That is more-or-less random and quite different. Around 1580 ‘Oxenford’ was archaic. ‘Oxford’ was the modern and much more common usage, for plebian things like the city, the university and the shire.

 

I found uses of “Oxenford” for the city and the university  in 1597, 1621 and 1641, none of them from the pen of the Earl.

 

You’ll find uses today — especially by Cambridge students and graduates when disparaging their older (and more prestigious?) rival. What matters are the numbers — and you are carefully not telling us what you found.

 

I think I probably know more Cambridge graduates than you do, and have never heard any of them say “Oxenford”. The only usage of it I can remember from the twentieth century is in Tolkien’s short story, “Farmer Giles of Ham”, in an affectionate dig at the OED. Tolkien of course was an Oxford man.

 

Obviously “Oxenford” was common enough as a variant that nobody would have noticed much if the Shakespeare works had used it occasionally or even exclusively.

 

It was the common spelling of the author’s name – by most people, if not by himself.

 

The Earl preferred a three-syllable version but would vary it occasionally; in his will he refers to his wife as “Ladye Margery Countes of Oxford“, “Margery Counties of Oxenforde” and “Ladye Margery Counties of Oxinford”. Holinshed was obviously comfortable with both spellings of Oxford/Oxenford. But Shakespeare exclusively used “Oxford“, for the earls, the city, the university and the county. To make a convincing case for the Earl of Oxford as author, you’ll have to do better than making up lies about which spellings were or weren’t in common usage.

 

It was YOUR claim (shown above) that the difference in usage required an explanation.

 

It requires an explanation only if the Earl of Oxford is proposed as an author.

 

I have given you one. I can see why you don’t like it — because it makes sense within the Oxfordian scenario. Oxford would NOT have used ‘Oxenford’ within the plays, because it would have been suggestive of /(consistent with) his authorship.

 

Well, so would the use of English!

 

And anyway doesn’t this argument rather demolish the Oxfordian supposition that there are in fact clues to de Vere’s authorship within the plays?

 

Only when you are a total dope. The author was fully aware of the way his name was used and the frequency with which he and his ancestors were referred to as ‘Oxford’ and ‘Oxenford’.  He would, in his works, follow the practice that best suited his requirements– and, in this case, it would have been to use the more common ‘Oxford’ consistently. However, there are numerous other items, which he would not expect members of his live audiences to fully register — given the absence of published texts (except for a few coming out very late in his career, when most of those with a real interest in establishing the authorship would have been dead).

 

We have discussed many examples here.  The ‘salmon’ in Macedonia for example is a revealing item. How many in an Elizabethan audience would have picked that up — in the absence of published texts? Much else, when closely studied, tells us that he knew Italy well, that he had studied Law, that he had a particular interest in music, that he was fairly standard C of E, that he had an obsession about husbands having irrational jealousies about their wives, and so on and on . . .

 

About the only matter of interest around here is how you find that scenario so hard to grasp. While I know that you are exceedingly stupid, I don’t think that working out such an answer would be beyond you, IF you could somehow get your mind around it. But that is not a prospect within your lifetime.