Comment by vidarh

I have been censured for proposing the 'wrong' interpretation. And it totally destroyed my respect for that teacher. My interpretation was supported strictly by the actual text. The 'correct' interpretation not just according to our teacher, but our textbooks, required a tortured reading and assuming a comma was misplaced when this author always otherwise had perfect grammar. The only defense was an appeal to authority: surely I did not expect to understand it better than some idiot who'd failed at basic reading comprehension a century ago.