Scene: Jen’s living room. Jen, Molly, and Wojtek are watching the Olympics.
Announcer: This must be a little bit like waiting for Godot for them.
J, M, and W look at each other and question whether the announcer knows what he’s talking about.
Molly: “Let’s go.” “We can’t.” “Why not?” “We’re waiting for our event to start.” “Oh.”
I think I turned the TV off soon after that, because that was really random.
It’s much less weird, but I get similarly confused when people say “sea-change” and don’t seem to mean anything more specific than “change.” “Sea-change” makes me think of The Tempest and drowned peoples’ eyes being turned into pearls, etc. I suspect people are thinking more of a change in tides…
digitalemur - Yeah, that was shortly before I dropped off to sleep, so I was even more confused by its randomness.
Marjorie - I always assumed that it involved the tides, myself. I am going to blame your alternate interpretation on your current mermaids-in-rocky-shoals frame of mind.
No, really! This goes back to when I was in high school and read Ariel’s speech:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! Now I hear them - Ding-dong, bell.
Marjorie–as everyone on the internet agrees with you, I’ll assume my back-etymology (and that of all the other people who use it excessively) is incorrect.
I will still blame your mermaid situation–I will just have to come up with a new reason.
You can blame the mermaids for the fact that I have this passage on my mind all the time.