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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 76
journeyman
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OP
journeyman
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 76 |
Anybody know the origin of the term "sea change," and also why it's gotten so popular lately? (Are we seeing a sea change in the use of words meaning "revolution"?)
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Hiya
Yes, it comes from billyboy's The Tempest:
"Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
The general connotation is a radical alteration of state, although Shakespeare was of course using it in a punning sense.
It does seem to be popping up quite a lot recently, doesn't it? I guess these phrases get bandied about on the media until they become so hackneyed as to be counterproductive.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
The misuse of it has been going on for a long time. Fowler complains of it as a hackneyed phrase, though I can't remember whether it's in The King's English (1904) or Modern English Usage (c. 1926).
As far as I'm concerned it's a misquotation pure and simple: those two words do occur together in Shakespeare but not at all in the sense now intended. Ariel's sea change was a slow transformation by the corrosion of time - not an abrupt reversal as if in... mid-stream?
What do people think they're saying? Even if they think it just means "change", why say "sea change" instead of "change"? "There has been a (sea) change in this government's policies"... what does it add?
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
I agree, Nicholas. I suspect many people use it thinking they are referring to 'a change in the state of the sea', implying strong forces at work. The pleasure in the original rests in the imaginative beauty that Ariel is conjuring up to delude the poor fool, and in Shakespeare's punning on the change in eyes/sea (see) and also that this sea-change occurs out of sight.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
The abuse of "sea change" is just part of the widespread excessive fondness for clichés.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
I always thought it meant a major, but slow, change. (This probably has something to do with my work in physical oceanography...) 
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I see there is no love lost between many AWADdies and the users of this phrase.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544
addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544 |
I fear I have been using it to mean a fundamental change in the state of things. I had heard of its origins in Ariel's transmogrification, but had conjured up my own folk etymology to fit with my use of it.
I've always thought of it as a change of seas. That is, the difference in sailing, say, the Caribbean versus the North Atlantic - different worlds, different conditions, different responses required. It somehow became linked in my mind to an image from soccer, when one calls out "switch fields" in calling for a pass from the other side of the field - which requires the defense to shift position to meet a threat coming now from a different direction.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Except, of course, to now use the phrase sparingly, and correctly.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Bean says : always thought it meant a major, but slow, change. (This probably has something to do with my work in physical oceanography...)
Got a surprise with this one! I've heard and used the phrase since I was a lil' one ... used around the New England seacoast meaning the weather has changed and a cool wind is coming off the sea ... specifically it's a Summertime word used when the weather has been hazy, hot, humid (3H weather) then there is a sea change and the wind comes across the cold ocean waters to cool us all off. A sea change is a welcome relief ... could use one today!
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