Per se

More often misused or misspelled?

This is prompted by my recent observation and acute shock at "per say."

Odysseus and the Crocodile Hunter

What do Steve Irwin and the legendary voyager have in common?

They were both fatally impaled upon a sting-ray barb. 

The September 2006 death of Steve Irwin was, perhaps, no less tragic than that of Odysseus, who according to the lost Telegony, perished at the hands of his son by the witch Circe, Telegonus. The battle between father and son, neither who recognized the other, culminated in Odysseus's death on the his son's spear point--a sting-ray barb.

That bit of Classical lore is, again, from M.L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth.

(cross-posted at De Grypis)

Did you know...

1) That thousands of years ago the plains of the United States looked much like those of Africa, inhabited by the likes of lions and elephants?

2) And that the British Royal family traces its lineage back, ultimately, to Odin?

You would if you were reading 1) Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and 2) M.L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth.