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Ink and Incapability

Ink and Incapability is the second episode of the third series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.

Plot

Samuel Johnson (played by Robbie Coltrane) seeks Prince George's patronage for his new book, A Dictionary of the English Language. The Prince - seeking to amend his reputation as an "utter turnip-head" - is keen, but Blackadder tries to turn him against the idea, damning the dictionary as pointless and making disparaging remarks about Dr. Johnson ("a fat dullard or wobblebottom: a pompous ass with sweaty dewflaps"). It soon emerges that Blackadder resents Dr. Johnson for apparently ignoring his novel, "Edmund: A Butler's Tale" which, under the pseudonym of "Gertrude Perkins", (according to Blackadder, all Regency-era female authors are men, such as Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth) he had secretly sent to the Doctor in the hope that he would use his influence to promote and seek financial backing for the novel. Edmund considers it his crowning achievement; 'a searing indictment of domestic servitude in the 18 century, with some hot gypsies thrown in!'

A meeting between Dr. Johnson and the Prince takes place, during which George fails to grasp the purpose of the Dictionary ("I know what English words mean! I speak English! You must be a bit of a thicko...") and Blackadder infuriates the Doctor by continuously inventing and using new words (offering the Doctor his "deepest contrafibularities" for finishing the dictionary and declaring himself "discombobulous" and "anaspeptic" when Johnson becomes more agitated about the new words, for example and also saying that he would return "interphastically") in order to convince him that his work is incomplete. However, on learning that Dr. Johnson had also intended, if given the Prince's patronage, to promote "Edmund: A Butler's Tale", (a book Johnson considers to be the only one better than his) Blackadder persuades George that he should, in fact, support the dictionary:

George: Well, thanks, Blackadder. That pompous baboon won't be back in a hurry.

Edmund: Oh, on the contrary, sir - Dr. Johnson left in the highest of spirits.

George: What?

Edmund: He is utterly thrilled at your promise to patronise his dictionary.

George (confused): I told him to sod off, didn't I?

Edmund: Yes, sir, but that was a joke...surely.

George: Was it?

Edmund: Certainly! and a brilliant one, what's more.

George (happy at the idea he managed to pull off a joke, pretends that was his intention all along): Yes, yes! I...er...suppose it was, rather, wasn't it...!

Edmund: So may I deliver your note of patronage to Dr. Johnson as promised?

George: Well, of course. If that's what I promised, then that's what I must do. And I remember promising it distinctly.

However, when Blackadder seeks to retrieve the dictionary for Dr. Johnson, Baldrick nonchalantly admits that he has used it to light a fire for the Prince. Repairing to "Mrs. Miggins' Literary Salon", where Johnson and his admirers ('junkie poets' Byron, Shelley and Coleridge) are socialising, Blackadder attempts to find out where a copy is kept, but Johnson indignantly proclaims that there is none ("Making a copy is like fitting wheels to a tomato - time consuming and completely unnecessary"). Under threat of death from the Doctor and his devotees, Blackadder desperately attempts to recreate the Dictionary before Johnson discovers the truth. Baldrick and George try to assist but their efforts are of little help (Blackadder: "Have you got 'C'?" Baldrick: "Yes. 'C: Big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in.'").

The next morning, Johnson and his devotees arrive at the palace, demanding the dictionary. About to kill him for the dictionary's destruction, the Prince emerges from his room, holding the dictionary and offering his patronage. It is ultimately revealed that Baldrick did not burn the dictionary but, instead, the only copy of Blackadder's novel (which Dr. Johnson had also brought with him when visiting the Prince). Blackadder is, of course, devastated by this disastrous turn of events. Dr. Johnson departs in a fit of rage on realising that his dictionary is missing the word "sausage" after he reads Baldrick's novel ("There once was a lovely little sausage called Baldrick, and it lived happily ever after"). Blackadder also discovers that it is missing the word "aardvark" (a word he had spent most of his time trying to define while trying to recreate the dictionary). The episode ends with Baldrick lighting another fire and this time burning the actual dictionary.

Historical references and inaccuracies

Well-known poets Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge appear in this episode, hanging round Mrs. Miggins's coffee shop and lamenting their drug addiction, tuberculosis and other woes. They are billed in the credits as "romantic junkie poets".
Samuel Johnson actually published his dictionary in 1755, seven years before the Prince was born. Johnson died in 1784, 25 years before Prince George became Regent. Likewise, Byron, Shelley and Coleridge, though contemporaries of each other and the Prince, would never have met Johnson.
Blackadder and Samuel Johnson both describe Blackadder's book as "a roller coaster of a novel". As the series takes place in the 18th century, the "roller coaster" anachronism is obvious.
The word a is described by Blackadder as an impersonal pronoun. It is in fact an indefinite article, which he nonetheless "defines" (at the urging of Prince George) as "doesn't really mean anything".
In the episode, a reference is made to Thomas More about the fact that he was burned alive. This is incorrect, as he was beheaded, not burned.
While explaining his pseudonym to Baldrick, Blackadder claims that Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth are men (especially Jane Austen, who is actually "a huge Yorkshireman with a beard like a rhododendron bush"), and the only female writer in England is James Boswell. These untruths are naturally meant to be comical references to female period authors who published under male names.
Baldrick's destruction of Blackadder's novel and Dr. Johnson's dictionary, mistaking them for trash and tossing them in the fire, is the manner in which the manuscript of Thomas Carlyle's 1837 history The French Revolution was destroyed by a maid of John Stuart Mill.