*sigh* This sort of thing used to baffle me, until I realized just how woefully subliterate (in general and especially historically) more and more people are nowadays. From a book blurb (for a book probably best avoided):
“. . . a cop finds a trove of ancient documents that may — or may not — be an undiscovered Shakespeare play. . .”
“Ancient,” used in reference to historical documents, almost always refers to Classical Antiquity — ancient Greece, Rome or the Middle East, etc. Sometimes it is loosely used in reference to medieval and earlier times, mostly by folks who are only moderately aware historically.
Shakespearean manuscripts could not be considered “ancient” by even the loosest, least meaningful sense of the term, since Shakespeare died just under 500 years ago, smack in the middle of the Renaissance.
Since these book blurbs for self-pub books are most often written by the “authors,” I’d say giving this book a pass might just be a sensible time saver.
Consider a maggot gagged. If only the alleged “author” could also be gagged, but as a (presumed) human his or her right to freedom of the press isn’t mine to infringe.
I know, gagamaggot probably has nothing to do with placing a gag on a maggot, but the image… I can’t unsee it, or make a gag that small.
*heh* To me, the image is more one of a maggot gagging at the moronic misuse of “ancient.” As to censoring the “writer,” I’m doing my part by avoiding the book and writing this mini-rant (and going to Amazon to say why I didn’t buy the thing). It’s the “write” *heh* way to censure bad writing.