By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ This line is a quotation from one of the most disturbing short stories of the entire twentieth century; but what does it mean?
Quotations
‘To Everything There Is a Season’: Meaning and Origin
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘To every thing there is a season’ is a famous Biblical quotation. It is found in the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. This short book is actually chock-full of oft-quoted lines: the phrases ‘nothing new under the sun’, ‘the sun also rises’, ‘eat, drink and be merry’, and ‘vanity of vanities’ also originate in Ecclesiastes.
‘Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread’: Meaning and Origin
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ is a phrase which has the ring of an anonymous proverb handed down over the centuries, a pithy apercu whose author and true origins are both lost in the mists of history.
‘The Best-Laid Schemes of Mice and Men’: Meaning and Origin
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The best-laid schemes of mice and men’ is one of those literary quotations which have slipped free of their origins and taken on a whole new, proverbial meaning. This phrase has issued from the mouths of people who have doubtless never read the poem in which it initially appeared, and many readers of poetry may nevertheless be unaware of the phrase’s poetic origins.
‘Brevity is the Soul of Wit’: Meaning and Origin
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ has become a pithy saying, a proverb almost, whose origins we may well assume to have been lost in the mists of time. So many proverbs which have entered common usage tend to be ascribed to that prolific author, ‘Anon.’ Is it the case with ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, too?