"man or beast"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/30/2013 04:03 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:07 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> > "Man or beast" with the latter as "girlfriend" must be the same error
> > as "music hath charms to soothe the savage beast".
> >
>
>"The *same error*" in what sense of "error"? The collocation is, in fact,
>"man or *breast*"?!

Yes, that was what it was originally ("a breast" = "a female, a
girlfriend"), but it was distorted over time into "beast" -- like the
way "savage breast" became "savage beast".  :-)

Joel

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