Archaic phrases in current, common usage.
Ptbrady
I am trying to gather some phrases in common current usage that contain
archaic language or references to ways of life that are long past. My criterion
is that the phrase is nearly meaningless in its exact wording, except that with
common usage, the phrase conveys a well-understood meaning. My quest comes from
the study of a foreign language, in this case Irish but it could be any other
language, that is full of old phrases that, with a dictionary, don't translate
well, but which are nevertheless understood in common usage.
Here are a few. My guess is that you can supply better ones.
1. It's a FAR CRY from the way we used to do it. Does this refer to a town
crier, being far enough away not to be able to hear the news?
2. Sleep tight. This is an easy one for museum people; it refers to rope beds
which periodically had to be tightened to prevent a sag in the center.
3. The whole nine yards. This has been beaten to death in this group, and I
have finally decided that it refers to sail rigging on 3-masted ships, but
please, I don't want to start that one again! I'd rather get more examples.
So, plumb the depths of your memories and see what you can find!
Thanks. Pete Brady
ps: If you want an Irish example: "Chomh chrann a casadh air," literally, "like
a stick that turns on it (or on him)," which refers to tossing a stick and
letting it fall randomly, thus selecting a person from a group, which
apparently was done in days past. The corresponding English phrase is "as fate
would have it."
Pulsatrix
Two candidates:
"Hoist by your own petard." (This is the only use for petard that I am familiar with.)
"A mere bagatelle." (The dictionary definition of bagatelle is "a trifling amount, as in a mere bagatelle.") Have you ever heard of bagatelle without it being preceded by the word mere?
"Ptbrady" <ptb...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20010114124029...@ng-ce1.aol.com...
Daniel P. B. Smith
ptb...@aol.com (Ptbrady) wrote:
> Quotations group:
> I am trying to gather some phrases in common current usage that contain
> archaic language or references to ways of life that are long past. My
> criterion
> is that the phrase is nearly meaningless in its exact wording, except
> that with
> common usage, the phrase conveys a well-understood meaning.
Slightly off-topic, but have you noticed the tendency for computer
software to use archaic symbolism? For example, my wife uses a version
of "Quicken" on her PC that plays a cash-register "Ka-ching!" sound
every time she makes an entry--except that cash registers haven't made a
sound like that for two or three decades...
These aren't very good because the literal meanings are still fairly
well known, but they're the first that come to mind:
"Squealing like a stuck pig"
"Running around like a chicken with its head cut off"
"Ship-shape" (not really archaic, but how many people who use it have
had any personal familiarity with nautical housekeeping?)
"Full steam ahead"
"Dial the phone" (and "don't turn that dial"--how long has it been since
a radio or TV had a dial?)
"Don't spare the horses"
There are, of course, all sorts of expressions that had to lose their
literal obscene meanings in order to become part of common parlance...
It still astonishes me to hear people say things like "that sucks" or
"they're trying to shove it down my throat." I've read somewhere, but
can't testify to it personally, that "up the creek" and "up the creek
without a paddle" and "up s--t's creek without a paddle" have obscene
meanings...
--
Daniel P. B. Smith
Preferred email address: dpbs...@world.std.com
Alternate email address: dpbs...@bellatlantic.net
"Lifetime forwarding" address: dpbs...@alum.mit.edu
Visit alt.books.jack-london!
The Sanity Inspector
that it only seems to survive in the phrase "one fell swoop."
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
Kenneth S.
full expression is: "All shipshape and Bristol fashion." Where on earth
does the "Bristol fashion" come from?
Furthermore, years ago I used to work for a very posh man in London who
frequently used what sounded to me like Victorian expressions. His
version of shipshape was, "All Sir Garnet." Sir Garnet who, I want to
know.
(By the way, I loved to listen to this man's efforts to mimic the talk
of the Cockney messengers in our office. His mimicry came straight from
Dickens, and bore little or no relation to the actual Cockney spoken by
the messengers in the mid-sixties. Still, it was fascinating to listen
to. . . a real time-warp.)
Matti Lamprhey
> I'm curious about one of the expressions mentioned below. I think the
> full expression is: "All shipshape and Bristol fashion." Where on earth
> does the "Bristol fashion" come from?
I worked in Bristol until a couple of years ago -- it was one of the main
English ports trading with the New World, and had a good reputation for
shipbuilding. It is also full of guilt because of its history in the slave
trade.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable gives:
Shipshape and Bristol fashion: a sailor's phrase; said in Smyth's
_Sailor's Word Book_ to refer to the time "when Bristol was in its palmy
commercial days...and its shipping was all in proper good order."
> Furthermore, years ago I used to work for a very posh man in London who
> frequently used what sounded to me like Victorian expressions. His
> version of shipshape was, "All Sir Garnet." Sir Garnet who, I want to
> know.
The new Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable gives:
All Sir Garnet: all as it should be, highly satisfactory; the term,
recorded from the late 19th century, refers to the British soldier Sir
Garnet Wolseley (1833-1933). The leader of several successful military
expeditions, he was regarded as the ideal of the modern professional
soldier, and was the model for the 'modern Major-General' in Gilbert and
Sullivan's _The Pirates of Penzance_ (1879); the actor George Grossmith
made himself up as Wolseley to sing the song.
(There used to be a make of car called Wolseley, and this may be from the
same family.)
--
Matti
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum auditur.
Bob Schroeck
> I think the adjective "fell" is a dandy word, and I'm sorry
> that it only seems to survive in the phrase "one fell swoop."
<shrug> I've heard "fell circumstances" used recently.
-- Bob
--
================================================================================
Bob Schroeck http://www.eclipse.net/~rms r...@eclipse.net
================================================================================
Talk about bizarre, really bizarre.
================================================================================
Bob Schroeck
> I like to collect words that appear in only a single context, which is similar to your request.
A "petard" was a particularly dangerous kind of early cannon, prone to
blowing its users up... hence, "hoisting" them into the air...
> "A mere bagatelle." (The dictionary definition of bagatelle is "a trifling
> amount, as in a mere bagatelle.") Have you ever heard of bagatelle without
> it being preceded by the word mere?
Actually, yes. "Bagatelle" is a name successively used for several different
games on the evolutionary line between lawn bowling and pinball. (Yes, pinball
is a descendant of lawn bowling. It started off as a miniature version of the
game for playing inside when it was raining out. Two hundred years later, it
eats your quarters by the handful...)
-- Bob
--
================================================================================
Bob Schroeck http://www.eclipse.net/~rms r...@eclipse.net
================================================================================
The Sword of Stealth is given to
One lowly and despised.
Sightblinder's gifts: his eyes are keen
His nature is disguised.
================================================================================
alohacyberian
"archaic" and not so archaic expressions still in use today:
"Foregone conclusion" ~ Othello
"Dead as a doornail" ~ King Henry VI, Part II
"Wear my heart upon my sleeve" ~ Othello
"What's in a name?" ~ Romeo and Juliet
"It's Greek to me" ~ Julius Caesar
"Parting is such sweet sorrow" ~ Romeo and Juliet
"Brave New World" ~ The Tempest
"Primrose Path" ~ Hamlet
"Sound and fury" ~ Macbeth
"Salad days" ~ Antony and Cleopatra
"Wish is father to the thought--" ~ King Henry IV, Part II
"Play fast and loose" ~ King John"
"Tower of strengh" ~ King Richard III
"In a pickle" ~ The Tempest
"Slept not a wink" ~ Cymbaline
"To make a virtue of necessity" ~ Two Gentlemen of Verona
"Make short shrift" ~ King Richard III
"Cold Comfort" ~ The Taming of the Shrew
"Kill with kindness" ~ The Taming of the Shrew
"A fool's paradise" ~ Romeo and Juliet
"Send packing" ~ King Henry IV, part II
"An eyesore" ~ The Taming of the Shrew
"Devil incarnate" ~ Titus Andronicus
"Melted into thin air" ~ The Tempest and he also coined,
"Vanished into thin air".
"For goodness sake" ~ King Henry VIII
"Rufuse to budge and inch" ~ The Taming of the Shrew
"Too much of a good thing" ~ As You Like It
"Seen better days" ~ Timon of Athens
"She hath more hair than wit and more faults than hairs" ~ Two
Gentlemen of Verona
"That bastardly rogue" ~ Henry IV
"To thine own self be true" ~ Hamlet
And many others, who's exact attribution escapes me at the
moment, such as: "breathing one's last"; "backing a horse";
"in my mind's eye"; "more in sorrow than in anger"; "bag and
baggage"; "milk of human kindness"; "remembrance of things
past"; "to beggar all description"; "flesh and blood" and "foul
play".
According to Bill Bryson in _The Mother Tongue_, Shakespeare also
gave us over 1700 new words including: barefaced, critical,
leapfrog, monumental, castigate, majestic, obscene, frugal,
radiance, dwindle, countless, submerged, excellent, fretful,
gust, hint, hurry, lonely, summit and pedant.
And I'll buy that, lock, stock and barrel. KM
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
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The Sanity Inspector <choll...@mindspring.com> wrote in
article <3a620b0a...@news.mindspring.com>...
dk
>A "petard" was a particularly dangerous kind of early cannon, prone >to blowing its users up... hence, "hoisting" them into the air...
>
Just lurking as normal, thought I'd chime in with this:
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:
Fourth Edition. 2000.
petard
SYLLABICATION: pe·tard
PRONUNCIATION: pi-tärd´
NOUN :
1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.
2. A loud firecracker.
ETYMOLOGY:
French pétard, from Old French, from peter, to break wind, from pet, a
breaking of wind, from Latin peditum from neuter past participle of
pedere, to break wind. See pezd-.
WORD HISTORY:
The French used pétard, “a loud discharge of intestinal gas,” for a
kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. “To
be hoist by one's own petard,” a now proverbial phrase apparently
originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the
word entered English (around 1598), means “to blow oneself up with
one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices.” The French noun pet,
“fart,” developed regularly from the Latin noun peditum, from the
Indo-European root *pezd–, “fart.”
---
Doug K
Nature gave men two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever
since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he
used most.
--George R. Kirkpatrick
David C. Kifer
>
> And I'll buy that, lock, stock and barrel. KM
Which reminds me of:
"flash in the pan" (flintlock muskets went out of fashion years ago)
"pot calling the kettle black" (so did wood cookstoves that put carbon
on the outside of the pan)
"a pig in a poke" is part of the same scam that gives us
"letting the cat out of the bag"
"a one horse town" (today probably a one stop sign town?)
"don't look a gift horse in the mouth" (few of us get horses these days)
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]
Sam Hobbs
>Quotations group:
> I am trying to gather some phrases in common current usage that contain
>archaic language ...
One that I hear occasionally (perhaps less than "common") is "hang
fire" which I believe refers to the possibility in artillery of shreds
of burning powder (or more likely of the burning remnants of powder
bags) remaining in a cannon where they could cause any new powder
placed in the gun to ignite with disastrous consequences. (The
probable cause of the relatively recent -- several years ago --
battleship turret explosion.) The meaning is an "incipient disaster."
Of course it is possible I am wrong in the origin of the phrase.
Regards, Sam
Paul Bartram
"Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbs...@bellatlantic.net> wrote
> Slightly off-topic, but have you noticed the tendency for computer
> software to use archaic symbolism? For example, my wife uses a
version
> of "Quicken" on her PC that plays a cash-register "Ka-ching!" sound
> every time she makes an entry--except that cash registers haven't
made a
> sound like that for two or three decades...
"Customer Service". There's two words that haven't had much in common
for quite a while... :-)
Paul
tmw
Some ships in British navy used to allow women on board, doing menial tasks
and care of wounded. They were given the privilege of an extra half-hour
morning lie -in, thus the officer rousing the crew would call "Show a
leg"and all the hairy legs in hammock had to get up!
tmw
_____________________________________
Pulsatrix
Main Entry: pe·tard
Pronunciation: p&-'tär(d)
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, from peter to break wind, from pet expulsion of intestinal gas, from Latin peditum, from neuter of peditus, past participle of pedere to break wind; akin to Greek bdein to break wind
Date: 1598
1 : a case containing an explosive to break down a door or gate or breach a wall
2 : a firework that explodes with a loud report
"Bob Schroeck" <r...@eclipse.net> wrote in message news:3A622A3A...@eclipse.net...
Shahin Malekpour
"Kenneth S." <nim...@erols.com> wrote ...
> I'm curious about one of the expressions mentioned below. I think the
> full expression is: "All shipshape and Bristol fashion." Where on earth
> does the "Bristol fashion" come from?
Check the link below for a possible explanation,
plus a bounty of maritime expressions:
http://www.mariners-l.freeserve.co.uk/GenBosunSlang.html
I am equally curious about the implication of the expression:
"Hoist by one's own petard" mentioned somewhere in this
thread. It is used by Shakespeare in Henry III: "For 'tis the
sport to have the enginer (sic.) hoist by his own petar" (sic.).
Webster's definition of petard:
1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.
2. A loud firecracker.
[French pétard, from Old French, from peter, to break wind,
from pet, a breaking of wind, from Latin pęditum, from neuter
past participle of pędere, to break wind.]
The implication appears to indicate: To hoist one's ship's sail
(argument, purpose) using petard (trivial or presumptuous
assertions?) and to entangle in one's own ill-considered
assumptions ... a self-inflicted nemesis. Any suggestions?
Shahin
ObQuote:
Dug from the tomb of taste-refining time,
Each form is exquisite, each block sublime.
Or good, or bad,-disfigur'd, or deprav'd,
All art, is at its resurrection sav'd;
All crown'd with glory in the critic's heav'n,
Each merit magnified, each fault forgiven.
-- Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850),
Irish portrait painter.
Jeffrey E. Salzberg
<puls...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>"A mere bagatelle." (The dictionary definition of bagatelle is "a =
>trifling amount, as in a mere bagatelle.") Have you ever heard of =
>bagatelle without it being preceded by the word mere?
It's also a musical term; Beethoven, for one, wrote some fairly famous
ones.
Donna Richoux
> I am equally curious about the implication of the expression:
> "Hoist by one's own petard" mentioned somewhere in this
> thread. It is used by Shakespeare in Henry III: "For 'tis the
> sport to have the enginer (sic.) hoist by his own petar" (sic.).
>
> Webster's definition of petard:
>
> 1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.
> 2. A loud firecracker.
>
> [French pétard, from Old French, from peter, to break wind,
> from pet, a breaking of wind, from Latin pęditum, from neuter
> past participle of pędere, to break wind.]
>
> The implication appears to indicate: To hoist one's ship's sail
> (argument, purpose) using petard (trivial or presumptuous
> assertions?) and to entangle in one's own ill-considered
> assumptions ... a self-inflicted nemesis. Any suggestions?
This is in the AUE FAQ, which is at <http://go.to/aue/>:
"hoist with his own petard"
---------------------------
"For 'tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his owne
petar" -- Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv. "Hoist" was in Shakespeare's
time the past participles of a verb "to hoise", which meant what "to
hoist" does now: to lift. A petard (see under "peter out" for the
etymology) was an explosive charge detonated by a slowly burning
fuse. If the petard went off prematurely, then the sapper (military
engineer; Shakespeare's "enginer") who planted it would be hurled
into the air by the explosion. (Compare "up" in "to blow up".) A
modern rendition might be: "It's fun to see the engineer blown up
with his own bomb."
--
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Shahin Malekpour
"Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1ena10c.14tjvmme4lw5cN%tr...@euronet.nl...
It is indeed from Hamlet and not Henry III (!) :/
Below is the quote which I have got. I have saved
AUE's newer FAQ (the one that I had was an older
version). Many thanks Donna.
Best wishes to you too,
Shahin
"There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet".
-- William Shakespeare,
Hamlet III,iv.
mike ring
wrote:
>I'm curious about one of the expressions mentioned below. I think the
>full expression is: "All shipshape and Bristol fashion." Where on earth
>does the "Bristol fashion" come from?
>
> Furthermore, years ago I used to work for a very posh man in London who
>frequently used what sounded to me like Victorian expressions. His
>version of shipshape was, "All Sir Garnet." Sir Garnet who, I want to
>know.
I understand that Shipshape etc, refers to when Bristol was a major
and admired seaport, but I don't know if it refers to anything
particular about rigging etc
Sir Garnet Wolseley 1833-1913 was the "Sir Garnet" an admired officer.
He is alleged to be the model of the modern major general in the
"Pirates of Penzance"
Mike R.
mike...@MichaeLbtinternet.com
Extract the MichaeL to email
DonnaB
Smith" <dpbs...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>Slightly off-topic, but have you noticed the tendency for computer
>software to use archaic symbolism? For example, my wife uses a version
>of "Quicken" on her PC that plays a cash-register "Ka-ching!" sound
>every time she makes an entry--except that cash registers haven't made a
>sound like that for two or three decades...
But, there was a famous, obnoxious commercial that played off of that
sound/word just a few years ago.
--
DonnaB
Buzz! Wrong! AW's Matt in the winter of 1996, referring to "... the
less people who know about it, the better, ..." Use less fewer times,
Matt!
Ben Trovato
wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 13:58:39 -0500, in alt.quotations "Daniel P. B.
>Smith" <dpbs...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>
>>Slightly off-topic, but have you noticed the tendency for computer
>>software to use archaic symbolism? For example, my wife uses a version
>>of "Quicken" on her PC that plays a cash-register "Ka-ching!" sound
>>every time she makes an entry--except that cash registers haven't made a
>>sound like that for two or three decades...
>
>But, there was a famous, obnoxious commercial that played off of that
>sound/word just a few years ago.
Do children still say "choo choo", [train] "whistle", and "ahh oogah"?
--
Ben Trovato
ruc...@alumni.umich.edu
444652N853431W
Jenn Ridley
>Do children still say "choo choo", [train] "whistle", and "ahh oogah"?
Mine do, but then again, we've done more riding behind steam engines
than in airplanes. And the ahh-oogah thing is from "beeping" noses (a
tap is beep, a pinch is honk and a squash is aaa-oogah).
jenn
--
Jenn Ridley
jenn....@gt.org
Don Olivier
> archaic language or references to ways of life that are long past.
"Long past" might not be so long ago. If you talk to twenty-year-olds,
most of whom have never lived on a farm or read old books, it's apparent
that huge areas of human experience that once were commonplace are being
lost. How many Americans under 50 have ever seen cream rising to the
top, for example? How many recognize that "full-fledged" refers to the
life-cycle of birds?
Dwight Bolinger once responded to some MIT linguists who were talking
about word meanings as intersections of cross-cutting classifications,
by saying that word meanings were "a nosegay of faded metaphors". In
our rapidly-changing world metaphors fade fast.
Speaking of birds makes me think of English surnames: an enormous number
of them are occupational categories which currently have no members and
which usually are not recognized as such: Cooper and Collier and
Wainwright are just names now, not trades. My favorite example is
Fletcher-- a lower-case fletcher occupied himself attaching feathers to
the shafts of arrows (same root as "fledge"), an important armaments
industry lately fallen on hard times.
And following the associations a little further, I remember being
surprised when I looked up the word "callow" and learned that along with
"immature" it could also mean "bald". That doesn't make much sense
until you realize that the image is not of men, who are bald when
they're old, but of birds, which are bald when they're young.
Shakespeare has Polonius say something about a "new-hatched, unfledged
comrade".
ObQ:
The so-called ``desktop metaphor'' of today's workstations is instead an
``airplane-seat'' metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of
papers while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the
difference-- one can see only a very few things at once.
-- Fred Brooks, Jr.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Olivier 2049 Dorchester Ave. d...@hsph.harvard.edu
The Boston Home Boston, MA 02124 (617) 288-0388
William C Waterhouse
mike...@btinternet.com (mike ring) writes:
>...
> Sir Garnet Wolseley 1833-1913 was the "Sir Garnet" an admired officer.
> He is alleged to be the model of the modern major general in the
> "Pirates of Penzance"
He is also mentioned in _Patience_. The Colonel's song in
Act I, beginning
If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune.
includes (among many othet things) the couplet
The genius strategic of Caesar or Hannibal--
Skill of Sir Garnet in thrashing a cannibal--
William C. Waterhouse
Penn State
Frank Bohan
===
Frank Bohan
Kenneth S.
Oh definitely, Frank, on this side of the Atlantic. I've NEVER heard
it used in the U.S. In fact, I've never seen that particular item of
lavatory equipment in the U.S.
Of course, you in Britain may want to keep the expression on life
support, if only for purposes of facilitating dubious puns about Lord
Mayors, and their insignia of office. However, once Ken Dodd and
similar comedians pass on, the expression will be gone for good.