Today’s wonderful idiom, in my quest to keep them alive in our new age of brevity and acronym, is this deep and dark metaphorical phrase:
Sold down the river
MEANING: to act unfairly, to betray, to ‘sell out’, to be snitched on. To betray.
‘This term arose in mid-nineteenth century United States and referred to selling slaves down the Mississippi River. The term was used in its literal sense by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but by the late nineteenth century it was used figuratively. P. G. Wodehouse used it in Small Bachelor (1927): “When Sigisbee Waddington married for the second time, he to all intents and purposes sold himself down the river.”’
Today I spoke with someone in France. One of the things I treasure about life in the 21st century is my ability to spend my days discussing books and language with young and old around the world. What a gift!
Anyway, I taught some English idiom and some of our crazy phrasal verbs today, but what I learned from the lesson was that English is more tolerant of mistakes (Prescriptivists!) and creativity (Descriptivists!) than other languages, and our penchant (cap to the French) for changing words, adding idiom to almost every sentence and arbitrarily using prepositions as we fancy is a real strength. How ironic that the English language has had to be tolerant of its dilution, that the empire spread it so thin so that it now flows like a river picking up flotsam and jetsum as it goes, widening and emboldening its rich vigour.
J March 