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Subject: Re: explaining "cool" (not temperature)
From: Christopher Ingham <christophering...@comcast.net>
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On Oct 2, 3:30=A0am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> On Oct 2, 6:47=A0pm, Christopher Ingham <christophering...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 1, 5:40=A0pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> > > On Oct 2, 10:17=A0am, Christopher Ingham <christophering...@comcast.n=
et>
> > > wrote:
>
> > > > On Oct 1, 4:17=A0pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wro=
te:
>
> > > > > Does the dictionary not consider "cool as a cucumber" slang?
>
> > > > He missed that.
>
> > > I think rather he doesn't consider it slang. It's just a conventional
> > > simile for the sense "not affected by passion or emotion,
> > > dispassionate; controlled, deliberate, not hasty; calm, composed" (OE=
D
> > > 2a), which Lighter does not include. It's a starting point for the
> > > rest, but it's not slang.
>
> > OED gives the above as one sense of the word alone. =93Cool as a
> > cucumber=94 also has this meaning, but here=93cool=94 means =93moderate=
ly
> > cold, said of a temperature which, in contrast with heat,=94 etc. (OED
> > 1a), and therefore is used in a very conventional sense, in
> > contradistinction to the slang senses it has in the other phrases
> > cited above.
>
> Are you agreeing with me? OED gives the "cucumber" expression with
> essentially the same definition s.v. "cucumber". I don't know what
> "here" refers to in your "but here..."

Aha. I understand now that you were referring to =93cucumber=94 2b I
thought you were referring to  =93cool,=94 where, under 4a, I saw, =93Of
persons (and their actions): not heated by passion or emotion;
unexcited; dispassionate; deliberate, not hasty; undisturbed, calm.=94
But regardless, this doesn=92t affect my argument.
>
> > The phrase, however, is considered =96 as I find on the first two pages
> > of Google search results =96 either slang (Siefring, The Oxford
> > dictionary of slang (2005); Chapman and Kipfer, American slang, 4th
> > ed. (HarperCollins, 2008); Dalzell and Victor, The new Partridge
> > dictionary of slang and unconventional English (Taylor & Francis,
> > 2006)); or idiomatic (Ammer, The American Heritage dictionary of
> > idioms (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997); The American Heritage
> > college thesaurus (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004)); or colloquial (Chambers
> > 21st century dictionary, rev. ed. (Chambers Harrap, 1999)).
>
> Interesting. I don't see any good reason to consider it either slang
> or even really idiomatic. Cucumbers _are_ cool. It's just a
> conventional simile.

Similes and idioms aren't necessarily always mutually exclusive.

Christopher Ingham