The Dogs of War The origin of this phrase is found in Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar, III, i, where Mark Antony mourns over the corpse of his friend, and cries: “And Cesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from Hell, shall in these confines, with a monarch’s voice, cry ‘Havoc l’ and let slip the dogs of war.” What are these dogs of war? What is this...

A Feather in His Cap “He wore a feather in his cap, and wagged it too often.” FULLER: Church History (1655). “That’s a feather in your cap!” we are ant to say to anyone who has accomplished any great feat—or physical endurance, like swimming the Channel, scaling the Himalayas, or flying across continents; of mental prowess, like gaining a scholar-ship, composing an epic poem, or painting a sunset. When Joseph Chamberlain...

A Frankenstein Monster “The landlord and the capitalist are both finding that the steam-engine is a Frankenstein which they had better not have raised.” —SIDNEY WEBB: Fabian Essays, 38 (1889). A metaphorical Frankenstein monster is a situation —political, financial, ecclesiastical, or domestic—which has been created through folly, and which has become so potent and uncontrollable that it is now a menace to social stability. The story by the wife of Percy...

A Forlorn Hope “Before the vantguarde marched the forlorn hope.” —DYMMOK : Ireland (1660). The word “forlorn” means to be helpless, forsaken; from the Teutonic “verloren,” meaning to lose; while “hope” is not, as may be supposed, the same English word signifying an aspiration for some good thing, but derives from the Dutch “hoop,” a troop or band of men. It is akin to our word “heap.” A “forlorn hope,” therefore,...

Face the Music “It was understood that the Prime Minister himself would reply—`face the music,’ as the Opposition expressed it.”—Press Report. To “face the music” means to face boldly the con-sequences of one’s action. Music is the science of harmonised sound, as well as the art of producing it. George W. E. Russell once described it as “harmonised noise”—a true definition; for no unharmonised sound can accurately be called music. Music...

A Fools’ Paradise “Fowele’s Parays, a well joyful place.” —St. Brandon: a 14th-century MS. A fools’ paradise is a state of foolish, though it may appear happy, illusion. Ancient theologians, being human, and having human limitations in outlook, divided the future state into compartments. Besides Paradise, or state of everlasting bliss, and Hades (Sheol), the pit of everlasting death, there was a “Limbo” (Latin, Limbus: a border, or edge). Dante makes...

Burn The Candle At Both Ends “Apt to light their candle at both ends; that is to say, they are apt to consume too much and work too little.”—HANWAY, Travels, it. i, 3. The meaning of this phrase is to use one’s resources unprofitably in two directions at once. Normally people burn candles at one end only. To burn a candle at both ends at the same time would be folly....

Cobbler, Stick to Your Last! “Ne supra crepldam suitor judlcaret.” (Confine your judgment to your shoemaking.) (Pliny, xxxv. X, 85.) This phrase is generally used to convey the idea that man-kind is compartmented in its knowledge, and that a man should express opinions on those matters only which he has specially studied. A doctor specialises in medicine and anatomy; a soldier in the science and art of war; an architect is...