ivory tower

[Jane Clark]

Wasn't it the color of Rapunzel's hair?


>From: AAllan at AOL.COM
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: ivory tower
>Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 17:52:44 EDT
>
>Has this been discussed before? I got an inquiry about "ivory tower" and
>find
>the explanations unsatisfying. The dictionaries cite a French source
>without
>explaining why it should be ivory. Charles Earle Funk, in "Heavens to
>Betsy,"
>gives the exact source in French and English but still does not say why
>it's
>ivory.
>
>Funk: "When Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic of the
>early nineteenth century, coined this term he thought of it as applicable
>to
>the aerie of a poet, a place where he could retire from the world, a
>retreat.
>The term occurs in his own poem, Pensees d' Aout, written in October, 1837.
>.
>.. ."
>
>But why ivory?
>
>- Allan Metcalf


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