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Post by Verbivore on Feb 29, 2020 20:39:01 GMT
Some trivia to start the month of March.
What’s in a name?
In Finnish, the month is called Maaliskuu, In Ukrainian, the month is called Berezenʹ, meaning birch tree, and březen in Czech.
Historical names for March include the Saxon Lentmonat, named after the March equinox and gradual lengthening of days, and the eventual namesake of Lent. Saxons also called March Rhed-monat or Hreth-monath (deriving from their goddess Rhedam/Hreth), and Angles called it Hyld-monath.
In Slovene, the traditional name is sušec, meaning the month when the earth becomes dry enough so that it is possible to cultivate it. Other names were used too, for example brezen and breznik, "the month of birches". The Turkish call it Mart after the name of Mars the god.
Now those in the northern hemisphere can march into spring (or spring into March), while we antipodeans are marching into autumn.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 1, 2020 8:36:51 GMT
It’s also St David’s Day. So Happy St David’s Day to all Welsh and New South Welsh folk and everyone.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 1, 2020 17:30:38 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 1, 2020 18:04:32 GMT
I certainly will, LJH, when I have forty minutes to spare! |
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 2, 2020 8:23:09 GMT
Thanks for that YT offering, LJH.
Quizzaciously, eh? I might have to add it to my lexicon of rare and almost useless words. LOL
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 3, 2020 12:05:18 GMT
I expect we've had this one before, but how do you comfort a grammar pedant?
Pat him on the back and say, "There, their, they're".
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 3, 2020 12:18:38 GMT
I'm always anxious to "get on to the next thing" (as the Contessa puts it), scarcely before the previous "thing" has finished. Is there a word for it?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 3, 2020 16:05:30 GMT
Dilettante ?
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 3, 2020 21:48:28 GMT
If only it were! Far too much stress and worry involved for that, I fear. |
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2020 2:08:52 GMT
On another forum (not language oriented) someone queried the origins of the old saw: ”There's no point in beating a dead horse”.
As I already had a collection of etymologies for the cliché, I posted them – to the enquirer’s satisfaction.
For lack of anything more interesting to post, I offer it here.
To beat/flog a dead horse
1. To pursue a futile goal or belabour a point to no end. The futility of such behaviour was pointed out by Roman playwright Plautus in 195 BC.
Other writers / dictionaries cite a quite different source for the cliché.
2. In the late eighteenth century, British merchant seamen often were paid in advance, at the time they were hired. Many would spend this sum, called a dead horse, before the ship sailed. They then could draw no more pay until they had worked off the amount of the advance, or until "the dead horse was flogged".
3. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the expression in its modern sense was by the English politician and orator John Bright in reference to the Reform Act of 1867, which called for more democratic representation in Parliament. Trying to rouse Parliament from its apathy on the issue, he said in a speech, would be like trying to "flog a dead horse" to make it pull a load.
4. The OED cites usage in The Globe in 1872 as the earliest verifiable use of "flogging a dead horse", where someone is said to have "rehearsed that [...] lively operation known as flogging a dead horse".
Source — "Unknown". The Globe. 1872-08-01.
5. Another instance is attributed to that same John Bright thirteen years prior: Speaking in Commons on suffragette protests, March 28, 1859, Lord Elcho remarked that Bright had not been "satisfied with the results of his winter campaign" and that "a saying was attributed to him [Bright] that he [had] found he was 'flogging a dead horse'."
Source — "Second Reading". Commons and Lords Hansard. Official Report of debates in Parliament. 1859-03-28. Archived from the original on 2019-02-08. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
Earlier meaning
6. Some scholars claim that the phrase originated in 17th-century slang, when a horse was a symbol of hard work. Paying for such hard work in advance meant the chances of a horse's work being done, rather than simply keeping the payment, could be represented by a dead horse (expecting work from a horse that you had already killed).
In a 17th-century quote from a collection of documents owned by the late Earl of Oxford, Edward Harley:
"Sir Humphry Foster had lost the greatest part of his estate, and then, playing, as it is said, for a dead horse, did, by happy fortune, recover it again, then gave over, and wisely too."
Source — Park, Thomas (1810). The Harleian Miscellany, or, A collection of scarce, curious, and entertaining pamphlets and tracts, as well in manuscript as in print, found in the late Earl of Oxford's library, interspersed with historical, political, and critical notes. p. 364. "Nick, Nicker Nicked, or, The Cheats of Gaming Discovered", printed 1669.
As with many long-established clichés there will be numerous theories and claims to its provenance, but I just might have flogged this horse to death.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2020 2:19:00 GMT
While on the topic of horses:
I found this some time ago in – I think – one of Mark Forsyth's brilliant little books. (I'm not sure that I perhaps posted it here when first found; apologies if I repeat myself.)
The entry on feague:
“For all I know, you could spend all day inserting live eels into a horse’s bottom. If you do, I must apologise for the arrangement of this book, and the only consolation I can offer is that there is a single eighteenth-century English word for shoving live eels up a horse’s arse. Here is the definition given in Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:
“‘FEAGUE: To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, and formerly, it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer’s servant, who shall show a horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figuratively, for encouraging or spiriting one up.’
“There are three instructive points to be taken from that definition. First, you should never trust an eighteenth-century horse dealer. Especially if you’re a horse. Or an eel.
“Second, the English language is ready for anything. If you were to surprise a Frenchman in the act of putting a conger up a mare’s bottom he would probably have to splutter his way through several sentences of circumlocutory verbocination. However, ask an English-speaker why they are sodomising a horse with a creature from the deep and they can simply raise a casual eyebrow and ask: ‘Can’t you see I’m feaguing?’
“The ability to explain why you’re putting an eel up a horse with such holophrastic precision is the birthright of every English-speaking man and woman, and we must reclaim it.”
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 7, 2020 11:50:42 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 7, 2020 20:17:04 GMT
Thank you, LJH. Most amusing. I've subscribed to the fellow's channel and shall binge-watch it for a while; at least the first ten video titles on his list appeal to me. Re the highlighted it's: were your fingers working in automatic mode, LJH? Happens here, too, especially when fingers and brain are out of sync.  |
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 8, 2020 0:20:10 GMT
It’s — sackcloth and ashes time ☹️ Or perhaps I am having trouble with auto-correct which has a habit of providing some more serious problems if I am not very careful.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 8, 2020 6:42:43 GMT
It’s — sackcloth and ashes time ☹️ Or perhaps I am having trouble with auto-correct which has a habit of providing some more serious problems if I am not very careful. I'd better not get started on autocorrect! When subediting for the newspaper there was one regular contributor whose submitted work was littered with autocorrect-generated errata. No matter how many times I requested / suggested / insisted she turn off that damn "helper" function her defence was her gross insecurity about her spelling (a very justified insecurity it was, too!). It particularly weirded out on unusual names, which it could convert into complete nonsense offerings. |
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