Infallibility

I get a weekly newsletter for writers and editors. Recently there was a discussion about whether or not the letter g is always hard (as in get) or soft (as in giant) before the letter i. As frequently seems to be the case with our wonderful English language (try teaching it to a non-native-speaker to find out how bad it is!), hard and fast rules are difficult to come by. Like not ending a sentence with a preposition the way I just did, when English is filled with phrasal verbs, or verbs followed by a preposition with no apparent object. "Sit down. Stand up. " I'll shut up but I am sure there are examples you can come up with. ;-)

Anyway, one anecdote that emerged was this:

When Cardinal Gibbons, the famous archbishop of Baltimore, was asked if he thought the current pope was infallible, he replied: "I’m not sure. He always pronounces my name Jibbons."

James Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921) was named a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. Both men were advocates of social justice, especially for workers, and defended efforts to organize labor unions. Make of that what you will.