Monday, October 25, 2004

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Phrases with Especially Plausible Folk Etymologies For whatever reason, as I was typing in an email "the die is cast", I got to wondering if I was right about the origin of that phrase. I thought of it as "the [singular of dice] has been thrown". But it occurred to me that it might mean "the form has been molded". Apparently not, though: http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifdiecast.shtml http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/7/messages/743.html http://www.word-detective.com/041400.html As an aside, this example shows the benefits of the Clusty search engine. This is an example of a "folk etymology" (I think that is close to the right term) that really is very sensible. Another like that is "veil of tears" (folk) for "vale of tears" (true). 12:49:47 PM    comment []