RBR Tailgating: Chicken in Beer

“Oh what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive.”

I don’t know that anyone keeps stats on such things but my guess is that the above is among the most misattributed quotes in the English language. At first glance it looks like Shakespeare. It sounds like Shakespeare. But brother, it ain’t Shakespeare.

The credit goes to Sir Walter Scott, but we can’t be blamed for immediately thinking of the bard. I won’t speak for everyone, but one of the lasting psychoses bequeathed to me by high school English teachers is the reflexive assumption that any lines of rhythmic, rhyming poetry that sound even in the slightest bit archaic must be iambic pentameter (even when they are not) and…