Mike Oliver <oli
...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message <
news:3CE43DF4.D34393DA@math.ucla.edu>...
> 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.
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:
From
www.century-dictionary.com
[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."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
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