[Ads-l] “bow-wow”, adj. = “high sounding =?UTF-8?Q?=2C_grandiloquent=E2=80=9D=2C_?=1826

Joel Berson berson at ATT.NET
Sat Apr 9 20:54:23 UTC 2016


“That young lady [Jane Austen] had a talent for describingthe involvements, and feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which is to methe most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself likeany now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplacethings and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and thesentiment, is denied to me.” 
“bow-wow”, adj. = “high sounding, grandiloquent”, not inOED3.  For  the definition, derived from the Scottquotation, see Richard Chenevix Trench, On some deficiencies in our Englishdictionaries (1860), p. 18.
 Entry dated 1826 March 14. Walter Scott.  Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott,Bart. Volume the Sixth.  Edinburgh: Robert Cadell; London: John Murray and Whittaker; 1837.  Page 264. Google Books, full view.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list