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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I came across an instance in the S.F. Chronicle last week where “brass” was used as an adjective in place of “brash” (or perhaps “brazen” which derives from “brass”). The construction was “brass assertion”—to be precise. It’s hard to tell whether this might be an eggcorn, and it’s also difficult to locate other such usages. I tried Google searches on “brass assertion” , “brass attitude” and “brass notion” with very little to show for the effort…
The Clock ShopI tied it self-consistent, though at the hazard of being outworn, to examine at slender length this brass notion, that blackjack consists in money or in …
www.rotatingcreate.com/random-storage/bulgaria.html – 13k – Supplemental Result – Cached – Similar pages
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British English has an expression “brass neck”, as in “he had the brass neck to ask me for a loan”, meaning impudence, shamelessness, though I don’t believe that is where this is coming from. Instead the whole passage –
” though at the hazard of being outworn, to examine at slender length”
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Good point MartyArtie. I think we’re reaching a heightened awareness—on this forum—of the interaction between British English and American English. (Someone recently posted a British expression: “not by a long chalk”—which is a plausible source of an American expression: “not by a long shot.”)
Your post also nicely points out that “brass” can be used to convey impudence—just as one could use “brash” or “brazen.” Perhaps the “brass assertion” construction is legitimate, and I’m just not familiar with it.
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I think I found the original quote. But now I’m not sure whether “brass assertion of government power” is actually a reference to military brass asserting itself.
FOLLOWING UP / Return of the rule of lawBut the disclosure of this brass assertion of government power by the White House should give the new Democratic-controlled Congress plenty of reason to …
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file … NKH6I1.DTL – 26k – Cached – Similar pages
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