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old hand
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old hand
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Marty
I think you have something here - though mildly off-thread.
Whatever has become of words like fro (to and fro), and gruntled (yes, yes, I know that's a joke one)? Will they even survive within their specific phrases/words?
Will I gain weight this Christmas?
Questions, questions...
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
The most famous example is "pray" and "beseech", as in "We pray and beseech Thee" which not only appears in English prayer books, but in the 1929 Episcopal prayerbook. "Pray" is, of course, from French and "beseech" from Old English.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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>neither fair nor foul?
I know this one as neither fish nor foul (but don't get shona started!!!)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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Bristol fashion
There is a often little double entendre in the use of this phrase as bristol or bristols feature in Cockney rhyming slang (Bristol City).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
In the same vein, but not redundant, is the phrase, friend nor foe, as in, the weather is not fit for friend nor foe (to mean it is so bad you wouldn't even want an enemy out in it)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 3,409 |
In reply to:
Bristol fashion
There is a often little double entendre in the use of this phrase as bristol or bristols feature in Cockney rhyming slang (Bristol City).
honi soit qui mal y pense! 
Until I did a Google search for the origin of "shipshape and Bristol fashion", I had never heard the rhyming slang that you make reference to. I can assure you that the people I learned the phrase from used it without so much as a tendril of double entendre attached. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
to and fro, fair nor foul (or fish nor fowl), friend nor foe, feast or famine -- these are pairings of opposites. it didn't take us long to come 180° on this topic.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I know this one as neither fish nor foul
I've always known it as neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.
Bingley
Bingley
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old hand
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old hand
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You never heard of a pair of Bristols? Can't be Brit then - or haven't watched enough "Carry on..." movies.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
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yes, i have heard, neither fish ....herring.
I have heard that in the past, some catholics, looking for excuses, used to eat goose on fasting days.
they held that some species of goose arose from a goose barnacle, so it was neither fish (seafood) nor fowl, and as such was exempt from rules on fasting. how the good red herring got added I haven't a clue.
and neither fair nor foul made me thing of " raining and storming"
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