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CHAT: Diet of Worms (was CHAT: Pronunciation)

From:Doug Ball <db001i@...>
Date:Friday, September 8, 2000, 17:16
> Mangiat wrote: >> Worms pronounced as if it were an English town /worms/ > > Which makes the name Diet of Worms rather amusing. :-) I can't > remember exactly what the Diet of Worms was, but it was an event in the > schism between Catholic and Lutheran. >
I think it was a Catholic conference where the Catholics started the Counter-Reformation. I think it was in the 1530s or 1540s, but I'm not really sure (it's been a while since World History in 11th grade) There's a pun on the Diet of Worms in Hamlet, somewhere around when Claudius is inquiring of Hamlet where he stashed Polonius' body (unfortunately can't say exactly where, especially since I don't have any Shakespeare in my personal library). I was pretty amused although I think a lot of my classmates missed it, but then again, the puns are my favorite part of Shakespeare. -Doug