Where there’s a Will, there’s a Norm

In the middle of a perfectly intelligent piece, the extremely knowledgeable Timothy Garton Ash says:

The legal, accepted immigrant should have the same rights, duties and life-chances as any descendant of Norman the Conqueror or Aethelred the Unready.

This illustrates the importance of good editing. You can see what probably happened: he started off thinking ‘the Norman conquests’ and then switched to preferring ‘William the Conqueror’, but haste or distraction meant he only got halfway though the change.

‘Norman the Conqueror’ is so funny that any sub not under the most preposterous pressure would have picked it up immediately.