"leaps and bounds"

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW,  there's the obsolescent phrase, "to mete out justice"; in the
Catholic Mass and in the Gothic Bible, there occurs the phrase, "Vere
dignum and justum est" = "It is truly mete and just" (in Gothic, in
the latter case, of course; by coincidence, the sight-reading part of
the Gothic final matched a reading used in the Catholic Mass). IOW,
"mete" as "measure" has been an active part of my vocabulary since I
was in the first grade, in 1942. Yet, it's never occurred to me that
"metes" was the original word in the phrase, "leaps and bounds."
Rather, I've always associated this phrase with the running style of a
deer, which can in no wise be characterized as "mete."

-Wilson

On 8/15/06, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "leaps and bounds"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>         What would it mean to say that one phrase was "derived from" the
> other?  "Leaps and bounds" "derives" from the verb "to leap," which
> derives from Middle English lepen and Old English hleapan, and the verb
> "to bound," which derives from Middle French bondir.  The words are
> different (the "bounds" in "metes and bounds" is a noun that derives
> from Anglo-French bounde), the meanings are different, and the parts of
> speech are different (although you can say "he moves by leaps and
> bounds" as well as "he leaps and bounds," and the former is more common
> when a figurative meaning is intended).  The most that can be said is
> that "leaps and bounds" may have been influenced by its coincidental
> similarity of sound to "metes and bounds."
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Nathan Bierma
> Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 8:54 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "leaps and bounds"
>
> A reader was told by a real estate teacher that the phrase "leaps and
> bounds"
> was derived from the phrase "by metes and bounds." I can't find any
> support for this, but I can't find anything else on "leaps and bounds"
> in the ASD-L archive, or anywhere else. Can anyone soundly refute this?
>
>
> Nathan Bierma
> "On Language" columnist
> Chicago Tribune
> www.nbierma.com/language
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>


--
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have
found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be
imposed upon them.

Frederick Douglass

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