And back to Canute. Love the name in its English transliteration. Knut is too boring. You can just sense the English frustration with the guy with that extra “uh” in the middle. It’s like they said it through clenched teeth. British occlusion being what it is, speaking through clenched teeth is remarkably understandable.
Since I’m already dipping into the stereotype joke bag: My sister-in-law pointed out that Wikipedia accuses Canute of hostage mutilation. My response was that he probably fixed their teeth and they just didn’t know what it was.
But then I read more about him. Not a bad role model. He got around, at least. Turns out he overthrew Ethelred’s claim to the Danish throne. I skimmed, so forgive me if I got the details wrong. I tend to read for other goodies. For example, Ethelred has gone down in history with his nickname intact: Ethelred the Unready. As if the name Ethelred weren’t bad enough. I’m guessing the “Unready” part came from his inability to hang on to the throne. But that’s just what they want you to think. Really it was given to him by his wife on their wedding night. It’s a bad translation of Ethelred the Premature.
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That would be "Ethelred the TOO Ready" ("Ethelred the Over-Eager"?).
There has to be a rhyming opportunity here for "Ethelred" and "bed", but I'm too lazy to put it together...
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