Posted on 07/05/2014 1:15:22 PM PDT by rickmichaels
Every Fourth of July, some Americans sit down to read the Declaration of Independence, reacquainting themselves with the nation’s founding charter exactly as it was signed by the Second Continental Congress in 1776.
Or almost exactly? A scholar is now saying that the official transcript of the document produced by the National Archives contains a significant error – smack in the middle of the sentence beginning “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” no less.
The error, according to Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, concerns a period that appears right after the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the transcript, but almost certainly not, she maintains, on the badly faded parchment original.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
BS
Its a load of crap. There were no standards of punctuation or spelling in those days
As has been pointed out several times since this new round of rubbish was circulated, the ‘W’ is capitalized following the purport in k stain, therefore the stain is not a ‘period’, it is in fact a stain.
NY Times is a toxic waste.
UNMITIGATED HORSE MANURE. Scholar, my azz.
Brought to you by the same people who read the 2nd amendment and see nothing wrong with Chicago and NYC total gun ban..
Actually there were and they work against this “professor”. The rule is that the start of every sentence begins with a capital letter. We can see “That” which starts the next sentence is capitalized.
“Professor” is wrong.... period.
Leftists never stop being crazy
Aw geeez, Edith ...
Now they are going to try to use grammar in order to “bootstrap” the government into a position of more influence in our lives ...
Yes, and actually it really really reads “The Decleration of Dependence”
Thomas Jefferson lived for 50 years (to the day) after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
I think, if upon one of the hundreds if not thousands of times he read it or heard it read, he did not say “Whoa! Wait a second. That isn’t what I intended!”, that declaration would have been reported somewhere.
Well we have certainly lost the conection that’s for sure. And I’m not feelin the love either :-)
http://www.sss.ias.edu/faculty/allen
Danielle Allen is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: the Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000), Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education (2004), Why Plato Wrote (2010), and Our Declaration (2014) and co-editor (with Rob Reich) of Education, Justice, and Democracy (2013). In 2002 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her "ability to combine the classicist’s careful attention to texts and language with the political theorist’s sophisticated and informed engagement." She is currently working on books on citizenship in the digital age and political equality and directs The Democratic Knowledge Project, a group of research projects on knowledge and democracy. Among these is HULA, a project on assessment in the humanities and liberal arts. Allen is a frequent public lecturer and regular guest on public radio affiliates to discuss issues of citizenship and education policy, as well as a contributor on similar subjects to the Washington Post, Boston Review, Democracy, Cabinet, and The Nation.
AB, Princeton University, 1993; Ph.D., Classics, Cambridge University, 1996; Ph.D., Government, Harvard University, 2001; Assistant Professor, Classics, University of Chicago, 1997-2000; Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Political Science and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, 2000-03; Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Political Science and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, 2003-07; Dean, Division of Humanities, University of Chicago, 2004-07; UPS Foundation Professor Institute for Advanced Study, 2007-; MacArthur Fellowship, 2002; Trustee, Amherst College, Pulitzer Prize Board, Mellon Foundation, and Princeton University; Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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These are the same fools that say that the 2A is only for muskets that load one ball at a time, and are used only for sustenance hunting.
If that is the case, then the 1A only covers soap box speeches without a microphone, and newspapers printed on an old style printing press, and the Protestant Religion.
They are so full of %^&# that it is embarrassing to those of us with even a modicum of education.
And, if you look at a copy of the document, every sentence finishes with a period, followed by a long line, then by a capitol letter starting the next sentence.
Thus, "pursuit of happiness. ----- That"
Great Point!
One would think the reporter might have printed the two versions of the sentence in question.
As I read the his sentence, it appears as if he defines four “truths” which are self evident... 1. All men are created equal, 2. they are endowed, by their creator, with rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, 3. governments are established to secure those rights and 4. if that government becomes oppressive, the people have the right to abolish it and form a new one that isn’t. It is rather odd, to me, that the first two rights begin with “thats” which are not capitalized, but the second two “thats” are capitalized even though, grammatically, the sentence has not ended.
There are very few reporters anymore, only gossip mongers. There are even less good editors today.
*fewer good editors*
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