Ch 5. #8 A.Haddad

#8 - Take a few idioms and try to find their source.

A friend in need is a friend indeed
Latin origin

n(semantic ambiguity)

n1.  a friend ( when you are) in need, is indeed a true friend. (Acceptable in 1562)

2.  a friend, (when you are) in need, is someone who is prepared to act to show it (in deed)

3.  a friend (which is) in need, is indeed a true friend (indeed)

n4. a friend (who is) in need is someone who is prepared to act to show it (in deed)

-Referenced in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations from the 11th century

-“It is sayd,  that at the nede the frende is knowen” Caxton’s Sonnes of Aymon 1489

 

A la mode
French origin

Commanders that are never a la mode but when all in Iron and Steel

Anglicized as a noun- ‘glossy black silk’

English- ‘with ice cream’

A la mode was referenced in John Selden’s Laws of England in 1649.

 

A foot in the door

American origin

nAn introduction or way into something so that progress may be made later.

n- it started out as a literal phrase, but progressed into a figurative phrase

 

A fate worse than death
Roman origin

nAny misfortune that would make life unlivable, especially rape or loss of virginity. It was formally a euphenism for rape.

n1781 from Roman Empire

The matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful in the apprehension of chastity than death itself.

n1914 from Tarzan of the Apes via Edgar Rice Burroughs

{The ape} threw her roughly across his broad, hairy shoulder, and leaped back into the trees bearing Jane Porter away toward a fate a thousand times worse than death. 

 

A la carte

French origin

nLiterally means ‘according to the card’

• the card refers to looking at the menu

•

•Earliest references in Joseph Sherer’s Notes and Reflections During a Ramble in Germany 1826

n“He will find comfortable apartments, civil attendance, excellent fare, a la carte, at any hour.”