4 ms·

I appear to missing some inside joke. Anyone want to explain it?

• skybrian 4y ago
  The title alludes to the second line of a speech from one of Shakespeare's plays. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56968/speech-friends-romans-countrymen-lend-me-your-ears https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56968/speech-friends-...
• wmf 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends,_Romans,_countrymen,_lend_me_your_ears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends,_Romans,_countrymen,_l...
  • mlindner 4y ago
    Interesting. I've read/watched some amount of shakespear but literally never even heard of this. Maybe it's based on regional schooling curricula?
    • aidenn0 4y ago
      I've noticed that Shakespeare's history plays get much less time in school than the comedies and tragedies.
• lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  As others pointed out it's (mis)quoting shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It is worth mentioning that I hope one day we (HN?) will be quoting code - that some portions of code (maybe elegant implementations of encryption or quadratic voting) will become canon just as shakespeare is taught in schools. It's always been a worry that if more people can quite shakespeare than do long division or understand a car engine then we will have "uninformed" decisions. I am dubious about that - I think of elections are meaningful, the populace takes them seriously and self informs to a level they are happy with (!) but anyway I like the idea that some of the Linux Kernel maybe in peoples heads enough to pop up in middle age
  • aidenn0 4y ago
    It was around 700 years from Beowulf to Shakespeare, so using English literature as a measuring stick, we have plenty of time yet.