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I'm wondering about the phrase "mortal coil". I get the mortal part, but coil?
most of what I'm finding talks about coming from "collect", and of course, the spiral usage, but I'm not quite with the whole life thing.
a search here brought up some interesting discussions from time past, but nothing specific to this. ideas?
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Pooh-Bah
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I wonder what made you think of this, just now? 
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well, it just sort of sprung up on me, ya know? 
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*ahem*
I'm guessing it could be from a poem? Sounds like John Donne or one of his metaphysical contemporaries.
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well, I haven't done a google yet, but I wondered about Shakespeare me'ownself.
edit:
well, I guess so:
Hamlet: ACT III, Scene i:
Hamlet: To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.
To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins rememb'red.
but, what's he thinking?
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Yikes!! I forgot I memorized this (one of the first signs...) in high school and got huge chuckles out of "bare bodkin" (OK. I was 15). But yeah, what does the coil mean?
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Dr. Bill replies that a big Shakespeare Glossary gives:
COIL tumult, turmoil
but we both agree those don't really fit, either...
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perhaps he's off reading Harry Potter.
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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mmm, praps. ;) I had understood it to mean upset, perhaps similar to ‘roil’; David Crystal glosses it as ‘Turmoil, disturbance, fuss ~ This mortal coil – ie, the bustle of life…’ I have no idea if it was a Shakespearean coinage or antedated, but he certainly uses it elsewhere. For example, in The Tempest (Act 1, Scene ii): Ariel: To every article. I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide, And burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble, Yea, his dread trident shake. Prospero: My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason? He also uses it in Much Ado About Nothing [Act 3 scene iii]: Dogberry is charging the officers of the watch he has sworn in… One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about Signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night. Adieu: be vigitant, I beseech you. I think ‘coil’ also crops up in Two Gentlemen of Verona somewhere in the first act and possibly one or two of the other plays, with a pretty uniform sense of ‘disturbance’, of a wild edged kind. Edit: yes, here’s a list of usages in this pattern: http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.phpI notice MW gives an unhelpfully brief "origin unknown" :(
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enthusiast
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>COIL tumult, turmoil
It seems to make sense to me, especially in the context of the Dane's dilemma. Mortal tumult, dead quiet, a clear choice.
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Yes, I've no problem with the sense scanning; just puzzled now I stop to think about possible etymology and linkage.
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A growing and quite interesting word thread without any input from Jackie. Whatever can the reason be? Perhaps we should invite her objective, dispassionate input into this thread?
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etymonline's quite interesting:
1611, from M.Fr. coillir "to gather, pick," from L. colligere "to gather together" (see collect). Meaning specialized perhaps in nautical usage.
Seems odd since Romeo & Juliet was published somewhere around 1597!
Ron, what does the Obviously Enormous Dick say?
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baaa~aaaad boy! :) Here’s a possibility: Derived Forms of noun coil
2 of 6 senses of coil
Sense 1
coil, spiral, volute, whorl, helix -- (a structure consisting of something wound in a continuous series of loops; ``a coil of rope'' ) RELATED TO->(verb) coil#1
• gyrate, spiral, coil -- (to wind or move in a spiral course; ``the muscles and nerves of his fine drawn body were coiling for action"; "black smoke coiling up into the sky"; "the young people gyrated on the dance floor'' ) RELATED TO->(verb) coil#3
• coil, loop, curl -- (wind around something in coils or loops)
Sense 2
coil, whorl, roll, curl, curlicue, ringlet, gyre, scroll -- (a round shape formed by a series of concentric circles) RELATED TO->(verb) coil#1
• gyrate, spiral, coil -- (to wind or move in a spiral course; ``the muscles and nerves of his fine drawn body were coiling for action"; "black smoke coiling up into the sky"; "the young people gyrated on the dance floor'' ) RELATED TO->(verb) coil#3
• coil, loop, curl -- (wind around something in coils or loops)http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin/wn?cmd=wn&word=coilIn other words, I think Shakespeare took the sense of something being in motion when being coiled, and transferred the sense into a noun representing the idea of vigorous motion, and hence a disturbance.
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even more interesting than I thought! M-W has this: Main Entry: 1coil
Pronunciation: 'koi(&)l
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
1 : TURMOIL
2 : TROUBLE; also : everyday cares and worries <when we have shuffled off this mortal coil -- Shakespeare>http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=coil
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I'm shakin' it, boss..
-ron (cool hand) o.
later that same evening:
amusingly, Sir James actually got kind of testy about this; hark:
[First in 16th c.: of unknown origin. Prob. a word of colloquial or even slang character, which rose into literary use; many terms of similar meaning have had such an origin; cf. pother, row, rumpus, dirdum, shindy, hubbub, hurly-burly, etc.
The conjectures that coil may be ‘related’ to Gael. coileid (kolet) ‘stir, movement, noise’, or to goilim (golm) ‘I boil’, goileadh, ‘boiling’, or to goill (go) ‘shield, war, fight’, are mere random ‘shots’, without any justification, phonetic or historical. Coil is unknown in Scotland, and no evidence connects it with Ireland. Gaelic or Irish words do not enter English through the air, with phonetic change on the way!]
1. Noisy disturbance, ‘row’; ‘tumult, turmoil, bustle, stir, hurry, confusion’ (J.).
1567 DRANT Horace Epist. II. ii. Hiij, Againe, thinckes thou that I at Rome my vearses can indyte Mongst so much toyle, and such a coyle, suche soking carke, and spyte. 1589 R. HARVEY Pl. Perc. (1860) 30 Such a quoile, with pro and con such vrging of Ergoes. 1590 SHAKES. Com. Err. III. i. 48 What a coile is there Dromio? who are those at the gate? 1608 L. MACHIN Dumb Knt. I. i, If my husband should rise from his study, and misse me, we should have such a coile! 1610 B. JONSON Alch. V. iv, Did you not heare the coyle About the dore? 1676 E. BURY Medit. 375 Many great men which..make a great coil, and keep a great stir and bustle in the world. 1728 SWIFT Mullinix & T., But tell me, Tim, upon the spot, By all this coil what hast thou got? 1860 T. MARTIN tr. Horace 208 What means this coil? And wherefore be These cruel looks all bent on me? 1884 HOLLAND Cheshire Gloss., Coil, row.
2. Confused noise of inanimate things; clutter, rattle, confused din.
1582 MUNDAY Eng. Rom. Life in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) II. 201 There was such a coyle among the old iron, such ratling and throwing downe the boordes..that I laye almost feared out of my wits. 1633 T. ADAMS Exp. 2 Peter iii. 3 (1865) 617 But put water to fire, and then you have a thundering coil. 1816 L. HUNT Rimini I. 11 You may hear a coil Of bubbling springs about the grassier soil.
3. Fuss, ado; a ‘business’.
1593 DRAYTON Idea 262 You Will, and Will not, what a coyle is here? 1595 SHAKES. John II. i. 165, I am not worth this coyle that's made for me. 1613 WITHER Abuses Stript & Whipt II. i. Vanity, They might foyle The party faulty e'en with half that quoyle. 1640 GENT Knave in Gr. I. i, I was extream drunke, aske my man Fub else, he'le tell you what a coyle he had with me. 1652 CULPEPPER Eng. Physic. 255 Physicians make more a quoil than needs behalf about Electuaries. 1692 HACKET Abp. Williams II. 45 What a coil hath been made to set up consisteries of ministers and ruling elders! 1861 READE Cloister & H. I. 303 Who makes the coil about nothing now? 1877 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Coil, fuss, bustle.
4. a. to keep a coil: to keep up a disturbance; make a fuss, bustle, much ado.
1568 T. HOWELL Newe Sonets (1879) 147 Dyd flee from fredom to the courte, Where Venus only keepes the coyle. 1577 HOLINSHED Chron. II. 743 They kept such a coile against the abbat and moonks, to have certeine ancient charters delivered them. 1587 GOLDING De Mornay ix. (1617) 140 Proclus and Simplicius keepe a great coyle in maintenance of the eternity of the world. 1611 COTGR., Grabuger, to keepe a foule coyle, to make a great stirre, or monstrous hurlyburly. 1669 SHADWELL Royal Sheph. V. Wks. 1720 I. 295 They all keep such a coile, when they come to die. 1748 THOMSON Cast. Indol. I. 35 Still a coil the grasshopper did keep. 1807 CRABBE Par. Reg. III. 904 And such sad coil with words of vengeance kept, That our best sleepers started as they slept.
b. mortal coil: the bustle or turmoil of this mortal life. A Shaksperian expression which has become a current phrase.
1602 SHAKES. Ham. III. i. 67 What dreames may come, When we haue shufflel'd off this mortall coile, Must giue vs pawse. a1764 CHURCHILL Poems, Journey II. 8 When the Night Suspends this mortal coil. 1814 SCOTT Ld. of Isles, I. Introd., Where rest from mortal coil the mighty of the Isles. 1829 I. TAYLOR Enthus. V. (1867) 108 The Christian..has waited in the coil of mortality only for the moment when he should inspire the ether of the upper world.
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Thanks for that, tsuwm - interesting (if true to type) that he got so ratty at the suggestion of a 'low' origin! fwiw, I can not track down any conceivable link to a Scots Gaelic or a Welsh linkage of any kind closer than the utmost improbability. Looks like its origins may genuinely be lost in the mists of the 16c and earlier.
Fong, d'ya feel like floating it at w/o? (I haven't got time to visit there in the next few days or I'd try it to check the other resources but.)
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you go, goyle.
a very enjoyable bit of trouble you guys(hi, Anna) have gone to. thanks.
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floating it at w/o?
I could do that.
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so, does Tipping know TEd? <smile>
thanks for sending it around, Fald, though seems as we can coil our own...
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Thanks, F - mebbe someone will come back with something more interesting in a while.
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