[Avodah] Tzvei dinim to bitel torah

[Zev Sero]

mkopinsky at gmail.com wrote:
> On 7/6/07, T613K at aol.com <T613K at aol.com> wrote:
>> I have a book about famous literary insults and put-downs, and in it there
>> is a story about Voltaire.   He wrote to someone he greatly  disliked:  "I
>> am sitting in the smallest room in my house.  Your  letter is before me.
>> Presently it will be behind me."

> The smallest room *in* my house?   What was the *out*house doing *in* the
> house?  I think that mistake gives away the fact that this quote was not
> written by Voltaire, but by someone who himself had indoor plumbing, and
> ascribed it to Voltaire, making the same mistake that someone made about
> the GRA.

Outhouse man dchar shmeih?  Voltaire didn't live in some Lithuanian
backwater.  18th-century Paris had indoor toilets.

 
> (P.S. Notice that we call him the GRA, not the GRE, even though his name
> was Eliyahu.  Thus, the SME (quoted by RZS in another thread) should be
> acronmy-ized as SMA.)

The difference is that the initial letter is an alef, which is pronounced
A, not an ayin which is pronounced E.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas