What is up with “movable feast”? Things I’ve found on-line seem to indicate that the term refers to a religious holiday (“feast” in ye olde parlance) that can fall on different days in different years-- like Easter, f’rinstance, but unlike Xmas (at least nowadays).
But whenever I see it used nowadays, it always seems to mean a meal that can be transported. Which makes no sense in its historical context, aside from the fact that using the highfalutin term “movable feast” in place of “picnic” seems absurd.
I always thought it was the title of a book by Ernest Hemingway of his life in Paris between the wars. His life in Paris was a moveable feast in the sense that they moved around town a lot and, wherever they went, life was a constant feast of food, booze, friends, ideas, events…
In other words, Hemingway may have been joking a little, or he may have been confused, but everyone who is using it to mean “picnic” is jes’ plane ignernt.
Ah. So Hemingway made a clever play on words, and then, after that, everyone else completely ignored its original meaning (and, soon enough, Hemingway’s).
I’m in the magazine business, so I’m always coming across it in competing publications … either referring to an actual picnic, some sort of take-out meal, having dinner on the patio … etc. Really annoying.
Yep, it’s one of those phrases beloved of lazy sub-editors when it comes to headlines. (And I should know - I am one ). Bet you also hate the phrases “Salad days” and “The proof of the pudding” for the same reason (assuming you work on some kind of food-related magazine…)
