A little accusation in the e-mail tonight, reprinted in full:

Yep. Read your blog on the Battle of Trafalgar, posted on October 21 2005 and quess what…this was petty much a straight lift from the New York Times of August 19, fully two months earlier. Plagiarism lives!

Fred Wehner
[email protected]

What drivel. Here’s my October 21, 2005 piece on Trafalgar; here’s the New York Times piece of August 19. Except that they are both about Trafalgar, they are nothing alike — but I’ll let the words speak for themselves. Just click the links.Sheesh.

Addendum, 1/25/06 After an e-mail exchange with Mr. Wehner that was not characterized by civility and which has not, at least as yet, brought me the apology I am due, I have ascertained that Mr. Wehner 1) failed to notice that my long quotation of an October 21, 2005 Scotsman essay by Arthur Herman in my October 21 blog entry was fully attributed to Mr. Herman by name and by link, and thus, as the quotation was properly attributed, it could not be plagiarism; 2) confused the October 21 Scotsman essay I quoted and linked to with an August 19, 2005 Wall Street Journal book review by Mr. Herman; 3) further confused the August 19 Wall Street Journal book review by Mr. Herman with an August 19 New York Times book review by William Grimes.

It took three errors to make it happen, but by this route my proper attribution of a quote in an October Scotsman article by Arthur Herman became the supposed plagiarism of an August book review by William Grimes in the New York Times.

Accusations are easy to make, folks, but it is very important to make sure you have your facts straight first. Sometimes, you may be hoping someone did something wrong and, well, they just didn’t.