--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Neil Ian MacKillop"
<rollotape@...> wrote:
>
> What happened to Boston? Massachusetts? Lest we forget! Everywhere
else, except where he was born and died, Poe was just passing through.
>
The birthplace should be important, I think. But all these claims have
more to do with tourism than with any serious claims. And Poe is dead,
so he can be claimed. The most preposterous such claim was a recent
one by a village in northern Spain claiming that it was "the cradle"
of the _Spanish language_. Can you imagine a language as municipal
property? Then another village, which also has an old manuscript in a
type of Romance language, counterclaimed that they, too, are "the
cradle". Absurd claims, something to boast about, get some tourists...
By the way, the ancient document is a shopping list from an unknown
person. It includes cheese...
So, if people can claim that a language is municipal-born, Poe can be
claimed by, say, Hawaii, on the basis that he would have loved to go
there or something like that.
Best
mrt
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