hoist by one's own petard

[Wilson Gray]

I realized that I was probably making some kind of mistake, but, I'm
on vacation. Well, I guess that I could have googled it. I've seen an
illustration of a petard - in this case, the petard was being used to
blow down the door of a castle. So, I knew that it was a kind of
large, primitive, shaped-charge bomb. And, given that "petard" is also
a word for a gigantic fart and knowing Shakespeare's penchant for
punning, I basically stabbed in the dark as to whether a person would
be lifted "by" or "on" a petard. My choice was primarily influenced by
those cartoon explosions in which the character caught in the
explosion floats _on_ the cloud of expanding gasses.

Of course, if I had stopped to think, it would have occurred to me
that Shakespeare was highly unlikely to have been familiar with such
cartoons.

BTW, did you know that the real name of Hadrian V, so far, the only
Pope whose native language was English, was Nicholas _Break_speare?
He's best known for decreeing that the English crown had a right to
rule Ireland. At the time, Catholicsm was the state religion of both
nations and Hadrian, thinking as an Englishman, didn't feel that being
ruled by the English would be much of a burden for the Irish.

-Wilson



On 7/15/06, sagehen <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      hoist by one's own petard
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson, joning with Charlie, writes:
> " because you're hoist on your own petard."
> Makes me wonder if Wilson, like me, for many years harbored the mistaken
> idea that a petard was like a little pennant or banner *on* a flagpole....?
> Anyway, as all of us who eventually looked this up found out, it ain't.
> It's a bomb which hoises by blowing up! Thus "hoist by," not "hoist on."
> AM
>
> ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
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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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