But your English is so good!

...

Art by Elliot Skow

Romeo and Juliet, as you know, concludes with the tragic deaths of two star-crossed lovers, but it opens with a bit of fun: two servants of the house of Capulet, not quite understanding each other.

Sampson: Gregory, on my word we’ll not carry coals.

Gregory: No, for then we should be colliers.

Sampson: I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw.

Gregory: Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.

About this exchange unprepared readers will have many questions, not likely including “Why are these guys speaking English?” Let us ask it now. The play is set in Verona, a long time ago. In that time and place, fluent English speakers, being rare, would have had employment opportunities far more lucrative than biting their thumbs on Lord Capulet’s behalf. Something funny is definitely going on.

You might say that the answer is obvious: Sampson, and Gregory, and indeed every character, speaks English because the play was written by an Englishman, for an English audience. And that is indeed the obvious answer—but not to the question I asked. It’s an honest mistake; the sentence Why are Sampson and Gregory speaking English? is ambiguous. It exhibits analytic philosophy’s favorite kind of ambiguity—an “ambiguity of scope.” With the use of some brackets, the ambiguity may be removed. The sentence may be used to ask an External Question, a question from “outside” the play:

EQ. Why is it that [in Romeo and Juliet, Sampson and Gregory speak English]?

The answer will have the form “[In the play, Sampson and Gregory speak English] because such-and-such.” But the sentence may also be used to ask an Internal Question:

IQ. In Romeo and Juliet, [why is it that Sampson and Gregory speak English]?

Now the answer’s explanatory information, the stuff after “because,” is inside the brackets: “In the play, [Sampson and Gregory speak English because this-and-that.]” The difference in bracketing makes for a difference in what can go in the answers: facts about Shakespeare, his time and place, the world he lives in, may appear in answers to EQ, but for answers to IQ, only facts about Sampson and Gregory, their time and place, and the world they live in—the world of the play—may appear. Nothing, therefore, about the listening habits of Globe Theater attendees is of any help.

Once the distinction is drawn, IQ may look hard, even impossible to answer; something for the PhD student in English Lit to tackle, maybe, but to be set aside by the casual reader. I am not studying for an English degree, but nor can I ignore IQ, for about internal/external question pairs like this one I have put forward a conjecture:

When a question about a story that calls out for an answer lacks an internal answer, but has an external one, then that is a flaw in the story.¹

For some quick evidence favoring the conjecture, note that it (if it is true) explains why some plot holes are bad. We tend to complain when a deux ex machina appears to save an otherwise unsavable hero, or defeat an otherwise undefeatable foe. This complaint, I suggest, is justified when “Why did this amazing device suddenly appear?” calls out for an answer, but has only an external one—namely, to get the story to an acceptable resolution.

But I now find myself in a bit of a pickle.