"You can make the sea turn turtle"
Snis Pilbor
"You can make the sky turn purple,
You can make the sea turn turtle,
But you know you can never make me love you more."
Interesting creative use of English. I have no idea what it means to
"make the sea turn turtle". Make it turn into a bunch of turtles??
Probably just used because it comes close to rhyming with purple.
I'm not sure the song or artist, since it's part of a remix. It's at
23:30 at
http://eurodancehits.com/monthly/magicmix0710.ram
but that link will only be good through the end of October 2007.
cybercypher
It's just the kind of nonsense that pisspoor songwriters come up with
to force a slant-rhyme such as this one, so don't bother to attempt to
glean any meaning from it. Songs written during the past 40 years or so
are a poor source of English.
The probable meaning of "turtle" here, though, is a kind of green
color.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"It has come to my attention that my opinions are not universally
shared." Scott Adams.
nanc...@verizon.net
> Here is a bizarre line in a song, with its surrounding lines:
>
> "You can make the sky turn purple,
> You can make the sea turn turtle,
> But you know you can never make me love you more."
>
> Interesting creative use of English. I have no idea what it means to
> "make the sea turn turtle". Make it turn into a bunch of turtles??
>
> Probably just used because it comes close to rhyming with purple.
To make something "turn turtle" means to make it roll over or turn
upside down so it's completely useless or helpless -- think of a
turtle on its back, with its legs waving in the air.
How one would do this to the sea, I'm not sure. Then again, they're
song lyrics. They're not *supposed* to make sense.
Matthew Huntbach
But it's bad lyrics because although "turn turtle" means what you say,
a false association is created because turtles also swim in the sea,
so one mixes up that with the usual use of the metaphor and thinks of
turtles swimming in the sea rather than something (the sea in this case)
turned upside down. In general, do not use a metaphor in a context where the
literal use of the terms in that metaphor wouldn't be unusual.
Matthew Huntbach
Barbara Bailey
@q3g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
To "Turn turtle" is to be upended, flipped so that the bottom is uppermost,
like a turtle that has been turned on its back. To make "the sea turn
turtle" would be to completely reverse the position of the water and the
seabottom; roughly as impossible to do as to make the sky turn purple. So
the writer is saying that although "you" may be able to accomplish physical
impossibilities, "you" can't make "me" love you more. The rest of the song
would be needed to know whether that's a good thing or a bad one.
Mike Lyle
The point of the metaphor, which has now been lost to most people, is
that it referred to /ships and boats/. "It 'turned into a turtle', by
going completely upside-down, and thus resembling a turtle by having a
'shell' on top." The song is pure bollocks.
--
Mike.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Donna Richoux
> Here is a bizarre line in a song, with its surrounding lines:
>
> "You can make the sky turn purple,
> You can make the sea turn turtle,
> But you know you can never make me love you more."
>
> Interesting creative use of English. I have no idea what it means to
> "make the sea turn turtle". Make it turn into a bunch of turtles??
To turn upside down, to capsize. You'll find <turn turtle> at
Onelook.com . It doesn't quite make sense for "the sea" but that's
songwriting for you.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
tinwhistler
[snip]
> It's just the kind of nonsense that pisspoor songwriters come up with
> to force a slant-rhyme such as this one, so don't bother to attempt to
> glean any meaning from it. Songs written during the past 40 years or so
> are a poor source of English.
Here's a song written within the last five years (by me) to the oldie
music of "Deep Purple" (so that folks can measure how much our sources
of English have undergone ptosis):
When the purple turtle frowns
And the Irish elf wears browns,
Then the lights begin to dim out from my eye --
With the loss of my memory
You color my reverie,
Making me blue,
I know not why.
--
Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego
nanc...@verizon.net
> Songs written during the past 40 years or so
> are a poor source of English.
And liddle lamsey divey.
Don Phillipson
news:4720a8b8$0$26419$8826...@free.teranews.com...
> The point of the metaphor, which has now been lost to most people, is
> that it referred to /ships and boats/. "It 'turned into a turtle', by
> going completely upside-down, and thus resembling a turtle by having a
> 'shell' on top." The song is pure bollocks.
"Resembling a turtle" is functional rather than pictorial.
A turtle turned over cannot right itself. (When sailors
killed turtles for food they knew they could leave a turtle
on its back for hours with a good chance of finding it still
there when they turned.) When a turtle is plastron-side
up, its uppermost part is (nearly) flat, quite unlike the
curved hull of a boat. If turtles ever look like boats, it
is when they are right side up (and the boat turned turtle.)
But no one who rhymes turtle with purple need be
taken very seriously.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Steve Hayes
And here i was thinking that was "And liddle lampseed ivy"
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
cybercypher
Neither Cole Porter nor Irving Berlin, I'm afraid.
Suspiciously symptomatic of renal ptosis, however.
Robert Bannister
> Snis Pilbor <snisp...@yahoo.com> wrote
>
>
>>Here is a bizarre line in a song, with its surrounding lines:
>>
>>"You can make the sky turn purple,
>>You can make the sea turn turtle,
>>But you know you can never make me love you more."
>>
>>Interesting creative use of English. I have no idea what it means to
>>"make the sea turn turtle". Make it turn into a bunch of turtles??
>>
>>Probably just used because it comes close to rhyming with purple.
>>
>>I'm not sure the song or artist, since it's part of a remix. It's at
>>23:30 at
>>http://eurodancehits.com/monthly/magicmix0710.ram
>>but that link will only be good through the end of October 2007.
>
>
> It's just the kind of nonsense that pisspoor songwriters come up with
> to force a slant-rhyme such as this one, so don't bother to attempt to
> glean any meaning from it. Songs written during the past 40 years or so
> are a poor source of English.
>
> The probable meaning of "turtle" here, though, is a kind of green
> color.
>
You're joking, surely? "Turn turtle" is perhaps dated, but is still a
well-known expression for "turn upside down".
--
Rob Bannister
Doug_H
Although many replies indicate turning 'turtle' means upside down,
that makes no sense at all in the context. I would create a parallel
between 'purple' and 'turtle.' The sky turns purple and the sea turns
tortoise shell as on a windy, choppy day. Many are the days I have
sailed on a tortoise shell sea.
Doug
The Grammer Genious
> You're joking, surely? "Turn turtle" is perhaps dated, but is still a
> well-known expression for "turn upside down".
Yes, but if a certain kind of persons happens not to be familiar with the
expression, a certain kind of person will just assume nobody else is either,
and trash it.
Personally, I think the quoted lyrics are rather expressive and charming.
cybercypher
No, I'm not joking. Why should I imagine anything as stupid as "You
can make the sea 'turn upside down'" as the probable meaning of a
nonsense slant rhyme that follows a statement about changing the
color of the sky?
The expression may be dated, but it's not a familiar one to me. I
don't think I've ever heard or read it, and I've certainly never used
it in my 64 years -- not that that means anything beyond my own
limitations.
I was trying to make some sense of what the sod who data-entried the
idiotic song quoted above actually said. Words and phrases change
their meanings based on context, and the context of this risible air
suggests no sensible meaning for "make the sea turn turtle".
Coleridge would undoubtedly say that assigning the meaning "turn the
sea upside down" to the expression is beyond the pale of a reasonable
suspension of disbelief.
When someone stretches the notion of metaphor beyond the snapping
point, all that's left is a semantic hole emblematic of that
someone's creative vacuousness.
cybercypher
> "Robert Bannister" <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote
>
>> You're joking, surely? "Turn turtle" is perhaps dated, but is
>> still a well-known expression for "turn upside down".
>
> Yes, but if a certain kind of persons happens not to be familiar
> with the expression, a certain kind of person will just assume
> nobody else is either, and trash it.
It deserves trashing, so I follow my rubber soles and "just do it".
> Personally, I think the quoted lyrics are rather expressive and
> charming.
You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
"Expressive and charming" indeed!
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"Most murderers are tolerable individuals momentarily blinkered by
their passions. Liars and thieves, however, are almost always
intolerably consistent recidivists addicted to their own petty self
interest." Anymouse.
Mike Lyle
[...]
>> Snis Pilbor <snispil...@yahoo.com> wrote
>>
>>> Here is a bizarre line in a song, with its surrounding lines:
>>
>>> "You can make the sky turn purple,
>>> You can make the sea turn turtle,
>>> But you know you can never make me love you more."
>
> Although many replies indicate turning 'turtle' means upside down,
> that makes no sense at all in the context. I would create a parallel
> between 'purple' and 'turtle.' The sky turns purple and the sea turns
> tortoise shell as on a windy, choppy day. Many are the days I have
> sailed on a tortoise shell sea.
Huh? Sorry to be dense, but that means nearly as little to me as the
original. Do you mean the colour? If so, is that before or after
polishing? I mean, Galapagos or cat or buttons? Or the texture? OED
doesn't help.
Snis Pilbor
>
> "You can make the sky turn purple,
> You can make the sea turn turtle,
> But you know you can never make me love you more."
>
> Interesting creative use of English. I have no idea what it means to
> "make the sea turn turtle". Make it turn into a bunch of turtles??
>
> Probably just used because it comes close to rhyming with purple.
>
> I'm not sure the song or artist, since it's part of a remix. It's at
> but that link will only be good through the end of October 2007.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion. Here is the
OP's final authoritative analysis based on the responses.
In English, there's a pattern of speech where you say:
"You can X, but you can't Y."
This phrase does not literally mean that the audience can actually X.
All it means is that the audience cannot Y. The "You can X" part is a
sort of intensifier. Compare: "Even if you were the last girl on
earth, I wouldn't love you." The level of intensification corresponds
with the level of absurdity of doing X.
In the example lyrics, "You can make the sea turn turtle" means "You
can turn the sea upside-down". As Barbara Bailey very eloquently puts
it, "You can completely reverse the position of the water and the
seabottom". Obviously this is very absurd and impossible. That
doesn't matter, all that matters is that it very strongly intensifies
the next line, "But you know you can never make me love you more."
Robert Bannister
Surprising. Other posts suggest that this is not a pondially-restricted
expression.
>
> I was trying to make some sense of what the sod who data-entried the
> idiotic song quoted above actually said. Words and phrases change
> their meanings based on context, and the context of this risible air
> suggests no sensible meaning for "make the sea turn turtle".
> Coleridge would undoubtedly say that assigning the meaning "turn the
> sea upside down" to the expression is beyond the pale of a reasonable
> suspension of disbelief.
Ah. I have never expected song lyrics to make sense. Mostly, I don't
even listen to them, so I live in a monde de green.
--
Rob Bannister
cybercypher
>> don't think I've ever heard or read it, and I've certainly never
>> used it in my 64 years -- not that that means anything beyond my
>> own limitations.
>
> Surprising. Other posts suggest that this is not a
> pondially-restricted expression.
I don't think I'm a typical American-speaker in this respect. All I can
say about not knowing this expression is that it didn't exist in my
world. Lots of other American-speakers who posted are familiar with it,
so I wouldn't suggest that it's at all pondial.
Father Ignatius
"cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:Xns99D56C5...@130.133.1.4...
> You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
[worldless mouthing] mutter mutter pot mutter kettle mutter
cybercypher
> "cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote
>
>> You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
>
> [worldless mouthing] mutter mutter pot mutter kettle mutter
Of course: "It takes one to know one."
But do you really think it's "expressive and charming"?
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"I've never met a solecism I couldn't turn into an acceptable idiom."
[The name of your favorite descriptivist linguist here.]
HVS
> "Father Ignatius" <FatherI...@ANTISPAMananzi.co.za> wrote
>> "cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote
>>
>>> You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
>>
>> [worldless mouthing] mutter mutter pot mutter kettle mutter
>
> Of course: "It takes one to know one."
>
> But do you really think it's "expressive and charming"?
The worst fault with the lyric is that "turn purple" and "turn
turtle" are meant to rhyme, but don't.
Near-rhymes are a sure sign of an incompetent or slap-dash lyricist.
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Father Ignatius
> "Father Ignatius" <FatherI...@ANTISPAMananzi.co.za> wrote
>> "cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote
>>
>>> You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
>>
>> [worldless mouthing] mutter mutter pot mutter kettle mutter
>
> Of course: "It takes one to know one."
>
> But do you really think it's "expressive and charming"?
Hell, no. I think it is a time-wasting conceit that metetriciously holds
out the false hope of inner meaning.
cybercypher
> On 27 Oct 2007, cybercypher wrote
>> "Father Ignatius" <FatherI...@ANTISPAMananzi.co.za> wrote
>>> "cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote
>>>
>>>> You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
>>>
>>> [worldless mouthing] mutter mutter pot mutter kettle mutter
>>
>> Of course: "It takes one to know one."
>>
>> But do you really think it's "expressive and charming"?
>
> The worst fault with the lyric is that "turn purple" and "turn
> turtle" are meant to rhyme, but don't.
>
> Near-rhymes are a sure sign of an incompetent or slap-dash
lyricist.
Yes, I mentioned that it was an odious "slant-rhyme" ("near rhyme"):
"It's just the kind of nonsense that pisspoor songwriters come up
with
to force a slant-rhyme such as this one, so don't bother to attempt
to
glean any meaning from it."
Sometimes slant-rhymes are necessary. I'm sure that Shakespeare used
'em, but I don't know where. Here's one I found on the Net [second
stanza]:
[quote]
The Rape of Lucrece by Shakespeare:
O happiness enjoyed but of a few!
And, if possessed, as soon decayed and done
As is the morning silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendour of the sun!
An expired date, cancelled ere well begun:
Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
Are weakly fortressed from a world of harms.
-
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator;
What needeth then apology be made,
To set forth that which is so singular?
Or why is Collatine the publisher
Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
From thievish ears, because it is his own?
[/quote]
The author of the page on which that appears says: "the many perfect
and near rhymes used by Shakespeare in Lucrece".
http://www.expansivepoetryonline.com/journal/prospart3.html
Then, too, there's sonnet 14 with "art" and "convert":
Sonnet 14
Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality.
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert.
Or else of thee this I prognosticate;
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
by William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"When you have to depend on those who used to depend on you, it's
time to say goodbye." Anymouse.
cybercypher
> "cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote
>> "Father Ignatius" <FatherI...@ANTISPAMananzi.co.za> wrote
>>> "cybercypher" <cyberc...@aol.com> wrote
>>>
>>>> You're just being your typically contrary and difficult self.
>>>
>>> [worldless mouthing] mutter mutter pot mutter kettle mutter
>>
>> Of course: "It takes one to know one."
>>
>> But do you really think it's "expressive and charming"?
>
> Hell, no. I think it is a time-wasting conceit that
> metetriciously holds out the false hope of inner meaning.
QED.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
CDB
[near-rhymes]
> Then, too, there's sonnet 14 with "art" and "convert":
[Bard]
> But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
> And, constant stars, in them I read such art
> As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
> If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert.
Seems quite possible that those rhymed at the time. Consider "clerk"
as [klArk]. even now. "Astronomy" and "quality", now...
tinwhistler
[snip]
> Neither Cole Porter nor Irving Berlin, I'm afraid.
>
> Suspiciously symptomatic of renal ptosis, however.
[snip]
Prolapsus into a prophylactic can be be prevented by several of the
widely advertised ED remedies, temporarily at least (after four hours
you're advised to call your doctor, but hell, after that long you
should call the President and all the media).
Ian Noble
wrote:
Sorry - you're expecting lyrics to make common-day sense? "Turn
turtle" as "turn the sea upside-down" I understand, even if the final
image is difficult - but then the lyrics are precisely about the
subject's ability to make the extremely unlikely happen. Whereas the
idea of "turtle" as a colour is not something I've ever met (and
simply making the water go choppy, or a vaguely different colour,
doesn't remotely match the magnitude of change implied by the sky
going an unnatural hue).
Cheers - Ian
Evan Kirshenbaum
>> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, nanc...@verizon.net wrote:
>>> To make something "turn turtle" means to make it roll over or turn
>>> upside down so it's completely useless or helpless -- think of a
>>> turtle on its back, with its legs waving in the air.
[snip]
>
> The point of the metaphor, which has now been lost to most people, is
> that it referred to /ships and boats/. "It 'turned into a turtle', by
> going completely upside-down, and thus resembling a turtle by having a
> 'shell' on top."
That looks as though it may be a folk etymology. The OED records a
sense of "To catch turtle by throwing them on their backs" cited to
1689, and another of "to turn over, capsize, be upset" is cited to
1818. But the first quotation for this latter sense defines the
phrase as
to get under a hammock, and lift it up in the middle, thus
pitching the sleeper out on one side of it.
Quotations involving boats capsizing don't start showing up until
1830, which implies to me that it was the "turning over, like one
would a turtle" that was important, not a reference to a capsized boat
looking like a turtle.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It is error alone which needs the
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |support of government. Truth can
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |stand by itself.
| Thomas Jefferson
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Mike Lyle
"Evan Kirshenbaum" <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote in message
news:8x5rw5...@hpl.hp.com...
> "Mike Lyle" <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
> >> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, nanc...@verizon.net wrote:
> >>> To make something "turn turtle" means to make it roll over or turn
> >>> upside down so it's completely useless or helpless -- think of a
> >>> turtle on its back, with its legs waving in the air.
>
> [snip]
>
> >
> > The point of the metaphor, which has now been lost to most people,
is
> > that it referred to /ships and boats/. "It 'turned into a turtle',
by
> > going completely upside-down, and thus resembling a turtle by having
a
> > 'shell' on top."
>
> That looks as though it may be a folk etymology. The OED records a
> sense of "To catch turtle by throwing them on their backs" cited to
> 1689, and another of "to turn over, capsize, be upset" is cited to
> 1818. But the first quotation for this latter sense defines the
> phrase as
>
> to get under a hammock, and lift it up in the middle, thus
> pitching the sleeper out on one side of it.
>
> Quotations involving boats capsizing don't start showing up until
> 1830, which implies to me that it was the "turning over, like one
> would a turtle" that was important, not a reference to a capsized boat
> looking like a turtle.
Well, damn. Again. I really didn't want to believe that; but what
convinces me is how many of the earliest references to boats upsetting
preserve the definite article in the middle of the expression. (I've
read they used sometimes to catch so many turtles or tortoises that they
had to stack them, all up-so-down, where the poor things would live for
many months without food or water before their turn came to be eaten.)
Roland Hutchinson
Likewise the rhymes in Lucrece cited upthread. Actually, they rhyme pretty
well in present-day English as she is spoke.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
cybercypher
> CDB wrote:
>> cybercypher wrote:
>>
>> [near-rhymes]
>>
>>> Then, too, there's sonnet 14 with "art" and "convert":
>> [Bard]
>>> But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
>>> And, constant stars, in them I read such art
>>> As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
>>> If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert.
>>
>> Seems quite possible that those rhymed at the time. Consider
>> "clerk" as [klArk]. even now. "Astronomy" and "quality", now...
>
> Likewise the rhymes in Lucrece cited upthread. Actually, they
> rhyme pretty well in present-day English as she is spoke.
That's the best I could come up with in the limited time available for
research. I just don't know The Bard as well as I'd like to. I can't
recite all his poetry by heart. But a single instance of a near-rhyme
is good enough, and "astronomy" and "quality" push the envelope just
enough to raise and earbrow.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
Roland Hutchinson
> Roland Hutchinson <my.sp...@verizon.net> wrote
>> CDB wrote:
>>> cybercypher wrote:
>>>
>>> [near-rhymes]
>>>
>>>> Then, too, there's sonnet 14 with "art" and "convert":
>>> [Bard]
>>>> But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
>>>> And, constant stars, in them I read such art
>>>> As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
>>>> If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert.
>>>
>>> Seems quite possible that those rhymed at the time. Consider
>>> "clerk" as [klArk]. even now. "Astronomy" and "quality", now...
>>
>> Likewise the rhymes in Lucrece cited upthread. Actually, they
>> rhyme pretty well in present-day English as she is spoke.
>
> That's the best I could come up with in the limited time available for
> research. I just don't know The Bard as well as I'd like to. I can't
> recite all his poetry by heart. But a single instance of a near-rhyme
> is good enough, and "astronomy" and "quality" push the envelope just
> enough to raise and earbrow.
Actually, on rereading, I'll grant you that your "orator... singular...
publisher" in Lucrece are half-rhymes whether or not the vowels match in
any given dialect, because the consonants of the last syllables surely do
not -- unless these words are accented on the last syllable with the a
single vowel still being used in all three (which seems unlikely).
mis...@gmail.com
>
> "You can make the sky turn purple,
> You can make the sea turn turtle,
> But you know you can never make me love you more."
>
> Interesting creative use of English. I have no idea what it means to
> "make the sea turn turtle". Make it turn into a bunch of turtles??
>
> Probably just used because it comes close to rhyming with purple.
>
> I'm not sure the song or artist, since it's part of a remix. It's at
> 23:30 at
> http://eurodancehits.com/monthly/magicmix0710.ram
> but that link will only be good through the end of October 2007.
David Kleinecke
PS: I first wrote "sporatic" and wondered why the spell checker rejected
it. I seem to be as likely to have free variation in voicing at that place
as US speakers are alleged to have.
Will Parsons
"Charlie [ˈdæɡədə]", last name spelled "D'Agata".
--
Will
![Peter Duncanson [BrE]'s profile photo](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/ALV-UjU1GGYFBCZgBCNB-pRgkosMu-ej0qpnECw3jc8uGYOTiF8a=s40-c)
Peter Duncanson [BrE]
The relevant two lines of the lyrics are:
http://artists.letssingit.com/paul-elstak-lyrics-luv-u-more-4h7ls2h
You can make the sun turn purple
me love you more
"turn turtle" is an idiom meaning "turn upside down".
What the words of the song are saying is that "even if you could do
impossible things like turning the sun purple and turning the sea
upsaide down you couldn't make me love you more". "Making me love you
more" is more "impossible" than "ordinary impossible".
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
quia...@yahoo.com
capsized ship floating hulll up. If the sea were turned turtle, how
could you tell?
--
John
snide...@gmail.com
Number of ships?
/dps
Lewis
--
THERE'S JUST ME, said Death. THE FINAL FRONTIER. --Moving Pictures
bill van
animal gone belly-up. The other is pulling all the soft parts - head,
legs, tail - into your shell and hunkering down, hoping that whatever
wants to eat you will go away. People do it to minimize a beating when
they don't want to fight back.
--
bill
RH Draney
>
> "Turn turtle" is a phrase meaning to turn upside-down, as with a
> capsized ship floating hulll up. If the sea were turned turtle, how
> could you tell?
Peter Moylan
can make the sea do something impossible. But you can't make me do
something even more impossible.
A similar idea appears in the song "Scarborough Fair". If she can make
me a shirt without any seams or needlework, then I'll love her. If she
can find me an acre of land between the sea and the strand, then I'll
love her. In other words, I'll never love her.
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
CDB
> quia...@yahoo.com wrote:
by a kind of trickery, and the promise is kept, the challenge is met, or
the romance can proceed. (In "I gave my Love a Cherry" a cherry when
it's blooming, it has no stone). I like this version, recorded by Ewan
McColl and Peggy Seeger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w83PusGtvEQ
Cheryl
emphasizes that Culhwch is given an impossible task before he can marry
Olwen. In this performance she tells the story before she sings the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un9qPVCpHt0
--
Cheryl
Rich Ulrich
went the opposite direction, affirming instead of denying
the romantical. I remember that at least one friend of mine
was left confused and annoyed by these lyrics.
The sun is made of ice and gives no warmth at all
The sky was never blue
The stars are raindrops searching for a place to fall
And I never cared for you
(Why say that? - because "you're convinced all men will lie to you.")
--
Rich Ulrich
RH Draney
>
> In my youth, a Willie Nelson song was popular that
> went the opposite direction, affirming instead of denying
> the romantical. I remember that at least one friend of mine
> was left confused and annoyed by these lyrics.
>
> The sun is made of ice and gives no warmth at all
> The sky was never blue
> The stars are raindrops searching for a place to fall
> And I never cared for you
....r