As if X had just come out from under a featherbed
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Mon May 22 08:11:28 UTC 2006
Carl Burnett wrote:
> Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (whose birthday is today, incidentally) used a
> similar phrase in his novel "The Firm of Girdlestone":
>
> "It's as plain as the fingers of me hand," the old soldier said in a wheezy
> muffled brogue, as if he were speaking from under a feather-bed.
The same idea turns up in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit: "And still the
Captain's voice was heard--so stifled by the concourse, that he seemed to
speak from underneath a feather-bed--exclaiming--'Gentlemen, you that have
been introduced to Mr Chuzzlewit, WILL you clear?'!
--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org
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