Sheep in wool's clothing

[Charles C Doyle]

And let us not forget the derisive "sheep in sheep's clothing."  I've always heard the epithet attributed to Churchill, in reference to the hapless Clement Attlee.  YBQ also gives an ascription to the scholar Edmund Gosse.

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Alice Faber [faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU]
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 9:05 PM
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The friend who queried just posted the phrase. The examples I found were
pretty much in rants, so I can't really guess the progression from "wolf
in sheep's clothing" to "sheep in wolf's clothing" to "sheep in wool's
clothing".

On 9/17/12 8:50 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> Was this intentional?  Might it mean that Scott Brown wears expensive
> suits, but is an empty suit?
>
> Only the first question above is intentionally serious.
>
> But isn't there some tradition about sheep wearing wool?  Perhaps
> their own -- On the model of the tale of the woman who had two
> chickens, one becoming ill, she killed the second to make chicken
> soup for the first, I imagine the owner of a sheep that was freezing,
> so he sheared it and for it knitted a wool sweater.
>
> There are, unsurprisingly, images of sheep wearing wool sweaters, for
> example
> http://neverdividebyzero.com/sheep-wearing-wool-sweater/
>
> When Shaun the sheep was shorn in Wallace and Gromit's "A Close
> Shave", was he then dressed in something knitted from his wool?
>
>  From effete Eastern Massachusetts,
> Joel
>
> At 9/17/2012 02:32 PM, Alice Faber wrote:
>> A friend on another list asked about the following:
>> "Scott Brown is just a sheep in wool's clothing ..."
>>
>> It's not in the eggcorn database. A quick googling revealed a few punny
>> sites (there's a knitting/fiber arts blog called "a sheep in wool's
>> clothing, for instance), as well as some apparently non-ironic uses
>> (albeit in impassioned writing).

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