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Author Topic: Martin "Francis" Luther  (Read 1022 times)

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Offline Neil Obstat

Martin "Francis" Luther
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2017, 06:08:12 PM »
Quote from: Geremia
Quote from: Last Tradhican
Birds of a feather flock together.

That makes no sense; feathers don't have birds…
Reminds me of the Anglicans saying the entire Church broke of from their tiny island…


It's an English idiom. It means birds that have feathers in common, or birds of a similar feather pattern. English compresses expressions removing fluff words and leaving the bear essence which is sometimes grammatically or logically imperfect, but popular anyway. E.g., A rolling stone gathers no moss. (Stones don't gather anything, let alone moss, especially when they do not move.) Barking up the wrong tree. (Used when there are no trees nor dogs barking involved.) By the skin of your teeth. (Teeth don't have any skin on them.) Crocodile tears. (Crocodiles do not cry.) Spill the beans. (Applies neither to spilling nor to beans, but to revealing someone's secret.)

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Offline Last Tradhican

Martin "Francis" Luther
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2017, 06:21:22 AM »
Quote from: Geremia
Quote from: Last Tradhican
Birds of a feather flock together.
That makes no sense; feathers don't have birds…


Better to Google it.
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Offline Geremia

Martin "Francis" Luther
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2017, 08:51:09 AM »
I'm all for idioms, and I understand the sense of them, but I'm against the ones that rely on logical fallacies (e.g., the bird/feather one, which interchanges whole and part). Perhaps I just don't like synecdoches, which are "A figure of speech in which a more inclusive term is used for a less inclusive one or vice versa, as a whole for a part or a part for a whole." (OED).
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