LL-L: "Expressions" LOWLANDS-L, 09.NOV.1999 (05) [E]

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Expressions

John Tait said: "The common Shetland word for 'let go' is 'slip', etc.

The expressions he cited were completely unfamiliar to me. But I looked up
"slip" in my Chambers Dictionary and found that the first meaning of slip as
vt. is "to cause or allow to slide or fall". No qualification or indication
of regional use. I can't think of an example which isn't better interpreted
by one of the subsequent definitions: "to put with a sliding motion; to
convey quietly or secretly".

I previously quoted a comic mistranslation into German (air lift ->
Luftfahrstuhl = *air elevator). There are serious points to this, too, which
Chambers may be illustrating in the case of "slip":

1. Always look things up
2. Don't always believe what you find when you do so.

My old Prisma Nederlands Engels Woordenboek has an account of the British
nobility. It says: "De adel bestaat uit vijf soorten `pairs' ... Engelse
`pairs' hebben dikwijls nog twee of meer titels." (Actually, "peer" and
"pair" are cognates, ultimately from Latin "par", "equal".) Finding this in
an appendix to a dictionary calls to mind the observation (I think by G K
Chesterton) about a clock which strikes 13: the thirteenth stroke is not
only meaningless in itself but casts doubt on the preceding twelve.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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