Conference thebay::joyoflex

    "common or garden"
            ^^
    
    Which I suspect is horticultural in origin, meaning that it grows wild,
    on the common, but has also been domesticated for garden growth.
    
    "one fell swoop"
         ^^^^
    
    And I don't know the origin.
    
    Nick

    The phrase "one fell swoop" comes from Macbeth, by you-know-who.  "all
    my little chickens in one fell swoop" is the larger phrase it's from,
    when someone (Macbeth maybe) hears that his wife and children have been
    murdered.  "Fell" means ferocious, savage, etc...
    
    -ellie

    Yep. That must be one of the more difficult parts to play. `All my
    little chickens' is understandable (but bathetic if Macduff plays it
    wrong). But when he first hears the news (of the slaughter, by
    Macbeth) he says `Oh, by whom?'
    
    While we're on the subject of MacDuff, and - almost incidentally - 
    on the subject of .0 and mis-parsed/mis-remembered quotations, it
    might be relevant to point out that when Macbeth challenges Macduff
    to do his worst, he says `Lay on, Macduff'. I've often heard
    `lead on, Macduff'.
    
    b

    re .-1
    
    As for misquotes of Shakespeare, one of the most common, I think, comes 
    from King John.  The misquote is "gild the lily"; the actual phrase is
    "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily..."  The misquote is in error
    not just for using the incorrect words, but for missing the point. 
    When I've heard people say use the "gild the lily" phrase, they were
    usually complaining about natural beauty being overpowered by ornament. 
    But the actual phrase denounces excess or redundancy.
    
    -ellie 

I always thought it was the "common, or garden variety" -- that is, something
so common that it is found in your average garden.  The comma is a casualty of
the years...

Roy

    Re: .4
    
    >> When I've heard people say use the "gild the lily" phrase, they were
    >> usually complaining about natural beauty being overpowered by ornament. 
    >> But the actual phrase denounces excess or redundancy.
    
    "Natural beauty being overpowered by ornament" sounds like "excess or
    redundancy" to me.
    -ellie 

    re .-1  Natural beauty being overpowered by *more* natural beauty would
    be redundant.  In the phrase "to gild refined gold" the idea is that
    gold does not need to be gilded since it is gold already; in "to paint 
    the lily" the idea is that lilies are already "painted" in beautiful 
    colors and need no further coloring.  I think the rest of the passage 
    goes on to say that these actions are "worthless and ridiculous
    excess."  (I may be misquoting here, myself, since I don't have a copy 
    of the play handy.) 

    Re: .-?
    
    Natural beauty being overpowered by *more* natural beauty may be either
    redundant or excess, depending on whether the added beauty is the same
    or different from the first beauty.

    Nice couple of self-referential replies there.
    
    Ray

    
   >> Natural beauty being overpowered by *more* natural beauty may be either
   >> redundant or excess, depending on whether the added beauty is the same
   >> or different from the first beauty.

	This would seem to support Ellie's point.  There is a distinction
	between gilding gold and gilding a lily, regardless of how fine it
	may be.  One is redundancy in a strict sense and the other is
	adornment.    

	Di

    And either is excess!

>    And either is excess!

			     Not unlike this note

   >> And either is excess!


	What's your point though, Tom?  That there's no difference?
	It's easy enough to see what Ellie was getting at, is it not?

	Diane

    Actually, I don't see any significant difference.  Yes, I see a minor
    point. To say "Gild the lily" may be a misquote, but the meaning of the
    misquote and the meaning of the original are sufficiently close that I
    don't believe there is much point in arguing about a difference.  That
    has never stopped me, however, and I don't expect it to stop anyone
    else.	:-)

    I'm grateful the original quote was posted so I too can be pedantic on
    the point when I choose. For this conference, it was altogether fitting
    and proper that we do this.  But the world will little note nor long
    remember.

    
    Always use gold paint for lilies.
    
    Now, would that be latex or oil-based?
    
    JP

>   Now, would that be latex or oil-based?

     What's the opposite of immutable?

    > What's the opposite of immutable?
    
    Alchemical, perhaps?

    > What's the opposite of immutable?
    
    Joan Rivers.

    Re: .-1

    Are you talking about her pulchritude, her loquacity, or both?

    Mutable, obviously.

                          -< Joan Rivers is mutable? >-

			Seems like this is a mute point.