Subject: clarification
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Thu Feb 21 2002 - 14:21:28 GMT
I'm as near as dammit certain I first encountered 'fustian'
when Miss Halliday took us through The Merchant of
Venice in Lower Prep, Newtown School, Waterford in
the autumn of 1940 just as Milch & Sperrle were retiring
to lick the wounds inflicted on them by my future comrades
of Fighter Command - & observed with profound satisfaction
by my then eleven year old self.
Long term memory suggests that the phrase 'to wear the fustian'
(acquired around this time) refers to the fact that actors of
the Elizabethan age wore primitive stage costumes made
from this particular type of coarse cloth. So, by association,
we link the clothing with the kind of declamatory, hot wind
baggery issuing from it.
An example, I believe, of metonymy.
Right? Right.
Scottie B.
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