J quotes, in "He is a runt", M. Quinion's remark on the English idiom,
"piss-rotten".
(By uttering 'x is piss-rotten', the utterer implicated that...).
Quinion:
"Ezra Pound invented "piss-rotten" in 1940 (the first example on record) and since then we've had "piss-easy" (very easy), "piss-elegant" (affectedly refined, pretentious) and other forms. "Piss-poor" just means 'extremely poor'."
J comments:
"Good ol' Ez--probably worth a boxcar of Oxbridgeans or Harvardians (what did he say about modern philosophers, apres Decartes?--third rate minds, or something)."
Yes. I always loved that Christian name. Ezra. It has an Anglo-Saxon ring to it, as does his surname ("pound". Cfr. Genesis, "Selling England by the pound").
J adds:
"We shan't mention whom, or what he was referring to, else the GC be included on the not-nice lists."
We should include something about Pound, too. He wrote the "ABC of Writing". I think it was a sequel to "The ABC of reading".
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The name Ezra's biblical but ...Id say OT rather than NT. So ironically EP, somewhat infamous for his non PC talk-radio for Mussolini, had a trad. name semitic.
ReplyDeletePound..not sure and don't have time for etymo-meter, but fairly common Anglo-scots name . His pa was an Idaho judge;and mama related to Longfellow, some irish and french blood. EP looks mo' gaelic than WASP IMHE, at least in his youth . I have the ABC, and also his classic "How to Read", but couldn't quite finish it--Villon's greatest hits was one of his faves . Pound finally dissed Joyce from what I read. Considered him mad, or at least not blackshirt material. Others say EP was mad--upon being released from the sanitorium (after what 12 years?), he immediately gave the hail Caesar