Ethelred the Unready/Talk

OK, so why was he called "The Uncounselled", then? Bad habit of holding his hands over his ears and singing "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" when his advisors spoke? -- Paul Drye

Not a million miles away from what happened, as it transpires... Except his advisors were as twisty as a New Labour focus group.... sjc

According to [1], it means "unwise". -- DrBob

- and if you believe much of that particular take on history, you'll also believe that England is a South Sea island paradise where the trains run on time and the streets are paved with gold. sjc

There are potentially n different translations out there, and n-1 of them are historically inaccurate if not actually wrong from a linguistic point of view. However, and I was hoping not to have to go into this, it's actually a longer article than most in the Wikipedia in itself, the word in AS is unraede, "without counsel" meaning that (to paraphrase Monty Python) in the ultimate balance, when all was said and done, at the final whistle, at a time of major national crisis he had absolutely no answers whatsoever for the problems which confronted him, and, moreover, as those who gave hime the nickname would have been fully aware, nobody on which he could rely to turn to for those answers. It is an Anglo-Saxon form of joke, an ironic pun, and is a) exceptionally cruel and b) searingly accurate. It doesn't just mean he was unprepared, it means he didn't have a fecking clue.

PS: DrBob: you don't think that the chinless wonders might be being somewhat diplomatic about their forebears in their website do you, by any chance?sjc

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mmmmm, royal nomenclature. My favorite English mistranslation is Philip the Fair of France. He's Philip-the-Goodlooking-who-EVERYONE-hated. Traditional nomenclature is a snare and a delusion, but how else are we going to keep Ethelred the U. separate from the other Ethelred(s)? --MichaelTinkler

My sentiments entirely. I was going to bang him in as Ethelred II but no-one would have the foggiest who Ethelred II was (I had to figure it myself). sjc

Go Cognomina! Unless anyone writes an article on "England's Rose," in which case I'll have to rethink! JHK