Morphology and the Scholar’s Stench

“In the Homeric Grammar by D.B. Monro, late Provost of Oriel, the following words are to be found on page 7: ‘Meaning of the Middle… (2) The use in which the agent is the direct object of the action, as λούομαι – I wash myself. This is comparatively rare.’ It is current in Oxford that an undergrad first detected the humorous side of this sentence.”

-Selby Henry, Good Stories from Oxford and Cambridge, p.86 (London, 1931)

 

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