Re "All that glitters" in the Merchant of Venice quotation. What is the justification for the use of "glitters" rather than "glisters"? I see the note makes it clear someone is aware of the actual line. I can only assume the misquote is deliberate, but I can't see why.
Doesn't seem to have anything to do with this trope:
- A common bargain in fairy tales is a promise to give "your most valuable treasure" or "the first thing you see when you get home." Inevitably, it's a child belonging to the bargainer, which he never intended to sell. The original source is probably the Bible: in Judges, Chapter 11, Jephthah vows to sacrifice the first thing he sees when he gets home to God, by fire. Somewhat amusingly, the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in his summary of Jewish history, spends some time talking about how Jephthah was an idiot and immoral for NOT taking a third option, and Georg Frederic Handel decided to change the ending when he made a oratorio about it.
I'm very confused. The old saying, "all that glitters is not gold", is a poetic way of saying "not all that glitters is gold". Unless I am sorely mistaken the quote means "not everything that looks precious is". The trope as it is written has nothing to do with it. It actually makes more sense as the Tolkien inversion, "all that is gold does not glitter".
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I agree. From the trope description I thought it was meant to be the inverse of what the phrase meant, so started to edit things according to the trope, rather than the phrase. But then I noticed the disclaimer right at the bottom of the trope description that says the exact opposite.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Confusing Definition
, started by Fiwen9430 on Apr 17th 2011 at 2:27:44 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman