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vale » veil

Chiefly in:   veil of tears

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • Last week, one of those hero-friends, World War II Marine air ace Joe Foss, departed this veil of tears to be with his Maker. (Oliver North, Military.com, Jan. 9, 2003)
  • “In the same way we are given the Blessed Mother to guide us through this veil of tears,” he said. (Madison Catholic Herald, Oct. 9, 2003)
  • So I have great pleasure in wishing Medicare happy 20th, and in confidently looking forward to the nearest thing to eternal life that is possible here in this veil of tears. (Department of Health and Ageing, Australia, Feb. 2, 2004)
  • In 2002, as the ailing and aged former Senator from South Carolina Strom Thurmond was facing retirement, his 100th birthday and, in all likelihood his departure from this veil of tears, C. Trent Lott praised him at a celebration of his life. (Enter Stage Right, Nov. 8, 2004)

Analyzed or reported by:

Brians explains:

The expression “vale of tears” goes back to pious sentiments that consider life on earth to be a series of sorrows to be left behind when we go on to a better world in Heaven. It conjures up an image of a suffering traveler laboring through a valley (”vale” ) of troubles and sorrow. “Veil of tears” is poetic sounding, but it’s a mistake.

| 4 comments | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/22 |

trade » trait

Chiefly in:   jack of all traits

Classification: English – /t/-flapping – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • Useful at being a jack-of-all-traits, Friberg was given full visual artistic authority on set in almost every stage. (Meridian Magazine, Mar. 8, 2003)
  • Another classic tenet in evolutionary ecology is that a generalist phenotype cannot excel in any particular function (i.e., a jack of all traits is a master of none). (Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, conference paper abstract, Jan. 2004)
  • While it appears that the business development person has to be a jack of all traits, this is far from the truth. (Oaktree Research, May 20, 2004)
  • Besides that, this program also hopes to develop the students into a jack-of-all-traits in other fields in addition to the academics. (doctorjob.com.my, July 28, 2004)

Makes sense, since someone skilled at a variety of tasks ought to be “multifeatured” as well.

(The example in the biology paper abstract above appears to be an intentional pun.)

See also traitor » trader.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/20 |

tail » tale

Chiefly in:   make heads or tales of sth.

Variant(s):  make head and tale of sth.

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • We will be able to read and write SMS messages, which even the literary gurus like Shakespeare and Milton couldn’t make head and tale of them if they were still alive. (link)
  • everytime i watch dune i wonder how anyone could make heads or tales of the movie without having read the book. (plastic.com forum, May 22, 2005)
  • Part of the reason I decided to chart this time around was to see if I could make heads or tales of the way the girls were conceived. (TheLaborOfLove.com, August 02, 2004)
  • Trying to make head and tale of the post they had sent me (Speedy will never be the brightest bulb unfortunatly) I PMed back expressing my hate for not only SonAmy but also there Zealot behaviour. (sonicanime.net forum, Sep 19, 2004)
  • She remains an outsider as a detached viewer of the hullabaloo but plunges into this commotion, to make head and tale of the story, so that She comprehends its impacts and implications. (link)
  • Sometimes a helping hand is all you need to make heads or tales of a tough assignment. (speedypapers.com, academic cheating service)

See also tale » tail.

The misspelling _tale_ for _tail_ (_”now take the fish by the head and tale”_) is also very common in contexts where a semantic reinterpretation looks unlikely.

Personal anecdote: I once was advised by a native speaker of English to avoid _make head and tail of sth._ because of the “sexual connotation”.

[Entry edited following Ben Zimmer’s comment. I wonder if there is a BrE/AmE split — I had definitely read the form _make head and tail of sth_ before. CW.]

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/19 |

sell » sail

Chiefly in:   sail (someone) down the river

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • When you support your C in C, that is loyalty, when to support your C in C unconditionally, that is stupidity, because he’ll sail you down the river for every political expediency going. (ivote2004.com forum, Apr. 13, 2004)
  • you wanted to sail me down the river cause something you thought you heard at a party when you were drunk. (StuntLife.com forum, May 10, 2004)
  • Also they are jealous of the fact that our party are not willing to sail us down the river to save them bad press unlike Sinn Fein. (Slugger O'Toole blog comment, Jan. 17, 2005)

Analyzed or reported by:

Horn writes:

Understandable enough, given the current opacity of the connection of “sell NP down the river” with the slave trade (and not, I gather, with the prison at Sing Sing) and the association of sailing with rivers, not to mention the phonology. But an eggcorn it is.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/19 |

tried » trite

Chiefly in:   trite and true

Classification: English – /t/-flapping – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • There’s a strong incentive to go for the trite and true, to aim for a niche of the market — like 18-to-25-year-old men — and program only sure-fire material to reach them. (Beat Radio, February 9, 1999)
  • This self-published 133-page book is easy-to-read, and is no re-tread of the trite-and-true. (tarotpassages.com)
  • Forget the trite-and-true rhetoric of the past, folks, because Spurrier is anything but hackneyed. (ESPN)
  • When it comes to football styles, the preference is for low-tech, for the trite and true. For most Steelers fans, “finesse” is about as despicable as, well, the other “F-bomb.” (ESPN)

Analyzed or reported by:

[Both occurrences on ESPN.com are taken from articles written by the same journalist, Len Pasquarelli.]

A great number of the occurrences of this eggcorn look like blends of the idiom _tried and true_ and the adjective _trite_. There are also examples that employ all three elements:

* Having determined that a truly polite garden is one that is safe, subdued, doesn’t incite undue envy and isn’t likely to disturb the onlooker, she is in a quandary about how to remedy her yard without resorting to the tried, the true and the trite. (link)

There is nothing illogical about, say, a cliché or a film script being at the same time trite and, at least in the opinion of the writer, true. Examples of this only marginally eggcornish usage and of another very common combination of the two adjectives, “trite, but true”, abound:

* What is trite and true about love applies as well to politics: It takes two to tango. (link)
* We begin to know that “As a man thinketh so is he” is a very trite and true saying in regard to his financial affairs, as well as everything else. (link)
* It’s trite but true: voters hate disunity. (link)

The juxtaposition of _trite_ and _true_ is not recent. A page that collects quotes falsely attributed to Winston Churchill has the following citation from his book _Great Contemporaries_ (London & New York, 1937, last reprinted 1990), which is a quote Churchill attributes to Arthur J. Balfour:

> ‘there were some things that were true, and some things that were trite; but what was true was trite, and what was not trite was not true’

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/07/18 |
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