And you should. If you don’t, it tends to dry out, and no one appreciates dry eloquence these days.
Groucho, upon being informed that the dean is waxing wroth,: “Is Roth out there too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for a while.”
Well dry eloquence goes better with dinner, a sweeter eloquence after dinner, a sweeter eloquence with smoked or salty foods and cheeses.
Also on “Wrought Iron”, I had a friend who was looking for something for her yard, I suggested wrought iron, she said “no she didn’t like the rusted folksy shabby chic look”
“What hath God wrought?” - I think that’s supposed to be the first telegraph message.
Also, I seem to remember that “neck” from “this neck of the woods” is an archaic use, where neck refers to a parcel or lot.
I’m not sure what turpitude is, but it’s considered a bad thing when morals are involved.
‘Augur’ - as in ‘It augurs well’. Much-loved by footballers giving the usual tedious, inconsequential interviews here in Australia.
Unfortunately, most of them have never heard of the word ‘Augur’, and so tend to mangle the phrase into ‘It all goes well for next Saturday’s game’ etc. I’ve seen the same in print from several journalists.
Huh… I’ve never heard augur as a verb before, I thought it was a noun that roughly meant “seer” or “oracle”. Though I suppose it makes sense that an “augur” might just be “one who augurs”.
Or, you could say "It augurs well, because we’re really gonna auger them!
Run the gauntlet.
Gauntlets aren’t nearly as popular as they once were.
Off the top of my head I can think of an archaic pattern in Dutch, as in heer des huizes (“man of the house”). The phrase des huizes, or “of the house”, is an example of an old genitive neuter construction which is not otherwise used except in similar fossilized phrases. IIRC many Dutch family names that have prefixes also exhibit obsolete constructions, e.g. van der X, van den X ten X, and so on.
As for German, from asking native speakers here and elsewhere, I gather that the neuter/masculine singular dative ending -e is well on the way to this status if not there already. An example of a stock phrase would be zum Tode verurteilt (“sentenced to death”).
Bode
Whelmed
The original word was “gantlet,” not “gauntlet.” Webster’s Second defines “gantlet” as
The word is also used to describe two sets of railroad tracks that temporarily converge without joining in order to get through a narrow area.
A gauntlet is a type of glove.
I’ve read that “the exception proves the rule” is based on an archaic meaning of “prove” which is to test something.
This meaning also survives in the term “the proving ground”, and “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”, but is generally not used otherwise.
Not really. This was already covered in this thread - see post #40.
BTW, when I hear someone say, “The proof is in the pudding,” I think of rum pudding.
Somehow missed that (as well as posts 29-30). My apologies.
:o
Indeed, that’s what the German-to-English translators settled on when subtitling (one of the deleted scenes from) Nordwand.
I think “Fair to Middling” qualifies.
Which reminds me of the book “Far from the Madding Crowd.” Don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen the word “madding” used otherwise.
Yes, except as “abated.”