Speaking of the Dead ...

Some while ago, I heard an apparent slip of the scriptwriter's pen on that classic sitcom, Waiting for God, the one set in a retirement home. One of the elderly inmates had just shuffled off his mortal coil; the waspish Diana (a sharp-tongued lassie after our own hearts!) made a disparaging remark about the deceased, and was chastised by her friend (and sparring partner) Tom. Thinking to caution her to 'speak no ill of the dead' he tried to show off his classical education by saying, "De mortuis nil bonum", but, having missed out the penultimate word, 'nisi' ('unless'), he actually said the opposite: 'Speak no good of the dead'!

This small anecdote came back to us recently as we thought on how the Kemmynistas enthusiastically traduce and defame the work of many of those who worked long and hard for the revival of Cornish, but have now passed on to the next stage of what the Gaels call 'the long and unknown road' (am bóthar fada gan eolas). There would have been no language revival without the lifelong labours of Henry Jenner, Morton Nance, 'Caradar' Smith, 'Talek' Hooper, P.A.S. Pool, George Pawley-White, Bryan Webb, Len Truran, Donald Rawe and a host of others. And their unforgivable offence? Why, to use a different form of spelling than that advocated by the KK Nazgûl and their cronies.

Of course, we could equally well coin a variant of that tag: De vivendis nil bonum, for their venom is aimed at the living just as much as at the dead. If I were of an heraldic turn of mind, the Latin misquote would do pretty well as a motto for that scabby crew of backstabbers:

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KK:-- 'de mortuis vivendisque nil bonum'
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