I think I have heard this phrase most commonly in this context:
Your sweet taste of victory will taste like ashes in your mouth. Cld someone give me the origin of this phrase or maybe explain it to me better. Thanks in Advance N
Nilesh wrote: > I think I have heard this phrase most commonly in this context:
> Your sweet taste of victory will taste like ashes in your mouth. > Cld someone give me the origin of this phrase or maybe explain it > to me better.
The phrase to me is irrevocably associated with the story in which I first recall encountering it, "The Devil and Dan'l Webster". The point-of-view character, whose name I don't recall, sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for prosperity. As the time grows near for his soul to be claimed, things are outwardly going very well for him, "there was talk of ----- for Governor, and it was ashes in his mouth".
I think that context should explain the phrase pretty well. As to origin, I couldn't tell you.
Nilesh <nileshs...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I think I have heard this phrase most commonly in this context:
> Your sweet taste of victory will taste like ashes in your mouth. Cld > someone give me the origin of this phrase or maybe explain it to me > better. Thanks in Advance
It's reasonably literal. You know what ashes are. You can imagine what they taste like. When people used to cook over real fires, ash used to get on and in the food. It was not pleasant.
The metaphorical part is saying that the experience of victory is like a "taste" of any sort.
> > I think I have heard this phrase most commonly in this context:
> > Your sweet taste of victory will taste like ashes in your mouth. > > Cld someone give me the origin of this phrase or maybe explain it > > to me better.
> The phrase to me is irrevocably associated with the story in > which I first recall encountering it, "The Devil and Dan'l Webster". > The point-of-view character, whose name I don't recall, sells > his soul to the Devil in exchange for prosperity. As the > time grows near for his soul to be claimed, things are outwardly > going very well for him, "there was talk of ----- for Governor, > and it was ashes in his mouth".
> I think that context should explain the phrase pretty well. As > to origin, I couldn't tell you.
I took a look at the entry for "ash" in *The Century Dictionary* because I was curious if it would cite some use of "ashes in the mouth" prior to that story. It did not--it didn't have the phrase at all--but I *did* find the following, which I found interesting:
[quote, with ASCII IPA used in place of the original pronunciation symbols]
ash-hole /'&ShoUl/, _n._ A repository for ashes; the lower part of a furnace ; an ash-bin.
[end quote]
Now *that* is the sort of thing I was talking about when I told Eric Walker that usages that prove unfit go extinct! "Ash-hole" started out as a perfectly good term, that is, perfectly fit for its language environment, but changes in the language turned it into an undesirable expression.
"Ash Hole" continues as a geographic name in Great Britain, for a cavern and for a crag. I did find one reference to a name for a type of geographical feature, "ash-hole basin." The author who used that term was probably British: he spelled "organization" with an "s" instead of a "z."
>> I think I have heard this phrase most commonly in this context:
>> Your sweet taste of victory will taste like ashes in your mouth. Cld >> someone give me the origin of this phrase or maybe explain it to me >> better. Thanks in Advance
>It's reasonably literal. You know what ashes are. You can imagine what >they taste like. When people used to cook over real fires, ash used to >get on and in the food. It was not pleasant.
Not pleasant? I wouldn't say that. From memory, not so dry as a well-chilled chablis, of course, but adding just the required piquant touch of je ne sais quoi to the - I think we had the wrong name for the flour and water pads we cooked in the woods and on which we grew almost as tall as any grown on impure McD's etc., and perceptibly more sensible. It's said it takes a pound of dirt to grow a child - Where do children have contact with any earth, not porno, these times.
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