I was reading Faustus this morning (his latest entry, posted last night, is a keeper, as usual), when my eyes wandered over to his sidebar.

In his sidebar, Faustus links to some of his most memorable entries. I noticed a phrase: “Faustus Is on the Horns of a Dilemma.” It’s a phrase I’ve come to associate with Faustus, because he’s used it at least twice (well, at least three times, if you include the sidebar). Something finally piqued my curiosity this morning — perhaps too little breakfast, too much boredom, an itchy trigger finger — and I decided to look up the origin of the phrase.

Apparently it involves the horns of a bull. It comes from a Latin phrase, argumentum cornutum, or “horned argument.”

But here’s my favorite definition:

“Thys forked questyon; which the sophisters call a horned question, because that to whether of both partyes a bodye shall make a direct aunsweere, he shall renne on the sharpe poyncte of the horne.”

Middle English is so cute.