Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
Posts: 790

burningyen, Good call!

I thought at first you were wrong about wherefore meaning why, so I looked up what is probably the most famous usage of it:

Juliet:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

to which he soon responds:

Romeo:
I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Juliet is asking him WHY he is Romeo. (He is in the "wrong" family according to her family.) Romeo responds, in effect, "OK, I won't be Romeo anymore."

Of course, you knew that.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 159

Hey! Here's a little something from Henry IV (and ironically appropriate to this forum):

ROBERT SHALLOW (a country justice, speaking to his servant):
"There, is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor. That Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge."