Trahison Des Clercs
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK There is a long string of words and phrases I used to come across quite often, but seldom see anymore now that William F. Buckley is no longer with us. I have in mind terms such as a fortiori, supererogatory, chiliastic, mutatis mutandis, immanentize the eschaton, and quod licet Iovi non licet bovi. (Look them up: They are effective figures of speech, except for the fact that hardly anyone will know what you mean if you use them. That never bothered Buckley. He thought it a valuable teachable moment when you had to get out your dictionary.) Another of Buckley’s favorites was “trahison des clercs,” a phrase with its roots in a 1927 book with that…Continue Reading