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stranger
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OP
stranger
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Hello All, I came across this phrase in The Professor and the Madman: "The british papers, always eager to vent editorial spleen on their transatlantic rivals made hay with this particular aspect of the story."
What does it mean "to make hay" and where'd the phrase come from?
~ pieman
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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Ah that's easy -
the expression is "make hay while the sun shines" - ie. make the most of whatever is coming your way, whether it be sunshine, money, good health ...
Origin: I'm sure someone knows better but I would think it has an agricultural literal origin.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes indeed, Jo, it has an agricultural origin. Speaking as a resident of a state full of farmland, plus personal experience on my uncle's farm in Tennessee, I can tell you that the farmer has to get the hay harvested and into the barn while it is completely dry. If it gets wet. in will simply rot and be no good for feed or even stall floor covering.
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journeyman
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journeyman
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In pre-industrial Britain hay was stored in the field in haystacks (of 'needle in a' fame) These were not simply piles of hay but carefully constructed stacks with a thatched roof to keep the content dry and often built on platforms to keep them off the ground. Barns were used exclusively for the storage of corn (corn is a term originally meaning any grain though modern use restricts it to maize, which is not much grown in britain). The american barn appears to be a general store for lots of farm produce, equipment and livestock whereas the british barn was a careful designed building where harvested corn was stored on one side of the building, between two large opposing doors was a threshing floor where the grain was threshed from the corn (the breeze between the doors being used to winnow the chaff away) and the straw then being stored on the other side of the barn. Cattle were kept over winter in a cowhouse, sometimes called a byre, often attached or close to the straw side of the barn. It's worth noting that hay is a separate crop and is an animal feedstuff, whereas straw is a byproduct of grain cultivation and is used for animal bedding. About as interesting as duct tape then.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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And can you describe the roof?
Amazing how all these threads link up isn't it.
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addict
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addict
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Brewer also has the phrase "to make hay of something": to disorganise and throw things into confusion and disorder. Before the days of the haybaler, it was tossed around with a pitchfork before being gathered in.
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Jo asked
"And can you describe the roof?"
It the noise Jonathen Ross's dog makes.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Cute, Philip! Who is Jonathen Ross?
Jo, he said 'thatched' roof--I presume with STRAW, not HAY. Wonder if it's a mansard, or what?? ;-)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Wonder if it's a mansard... if a female contractor installs a mansard roof do we have a feminist/semantics problem? http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"And can you describe the roof?" >It the noise Jonathen Ross's dog makes. oh you wascal; that's a *weally obscure 'cultural' weference. http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hay! Tsuwm, I think it should be a 'womansard' roof, then! I also now understand your later weference.
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old hand
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old hand
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Even among us "word harvesters" the majority, myself included, seems to be emotionally/unconsciously attached to the agri-culture of our ancestors. It would be interesting to determine the percentage of agricultural themes among metaphors in general.
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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 20 |
Leafing through the OED I came across this word:
medkniche - "...the quantity of hay to be given in reward to the hayward, being as much as he could lift with his middle finger as hgh as his knee."
pieman
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Leafing through the OED..." as one does ..
How many places could you begin a sentence like that!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>It would be interesting to determine the percentage of agricultural themes among metaphors in general.<
Herr Sieber, I wonder if your compatriot, Jung, ever did a study on that while he was compiling examples for his "collective unconscious" theory?
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old hand
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old hand
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Anna.., Even though C.G.Jung always insisted on the empirical foundation of his concepts, his empirical base was more anecdotal than statistical (This is not intended as a value judgement); and his clientele hardly included any people of agricultural occupation.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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wsieber, a one-word agricultural metaphor that is relevant to this thread is calling someone a 'hayseed'.
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member
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member
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...and what about someone who might be too chicken to post to the forum?
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old hand
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old hand
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Jackie, Thank you, I did not know this word. I looked up its meaning in Merriam Webster.. and now I have a nagging doubt whether this is really a METAPHOR in the sense of "making hay". There must be another term for such words, in the direction of "pars pro toto".
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stranger
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stranger
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Apparently the nice, warm, thatched roofs were the home of various animals on the farm including the cats, mice and dogs. When it rained, all the animals would jump down from the roof and hence the expression "Its raining cats and dogs"
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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wsieber, I stand contemned.
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