Sometimes, while reading old books, you can find awkward sentences like this one: There they lit the fire and Nab and Pencroff, obviously on cooking duties (one being a Nigro the other being a sailor), quickly prepared a rabbit BBQ that delighted everyone.  L’Île mystérieuse – Jules Verne – End of chapter 4 – My own translation from Italian What was Verne’s intention when writing this sentence? The book is set during the American Civil War, and the protagonists (the other three are a kid, an engineer and a journalist) are all northeners with progressive anti-slavery views. So is the sentence just a joke? I find the sentence a bit…