A death grip. Round pegs (or men) in
square holes. The lamp of sacrifice. The silver lining. Troubling the
waters, and poisoning the wells. The promised land. Flowing with milk
and honey. Winning all along the line. Casting in her lot with. The
fruits of victory. Backs to the wall. Bubbling over with confidence.
Bled white. The writing on the wall. The sickle of death. A ring fence
round. The crucible of. Answering the call. Grinding the faces of the
poor. The scroll of fame.'--A. CLUTTON-BROCK.
IRRELEVANT ALLUSION
We all know the people--for they are the majority, and probably
include our particular selves--who cannot carry on the ordinary
business of everyday talk without the use of phrases containing a part
that is appropriate, and another that is pointless or worse; the two
parts have associated themselves together in their minds as making up
what somebody has said, and what others as well as they will find
familiar, and they have the sort of pleasure in producing the
combination that a child has in airing a newly acquired word. There
is, indeed, a certain charm in the grown man's boyish ebullience, not
to be restrained by thoughts of relevance from letting the exuberant
phrase jet forth. And for that charm we put up with it when a speaker
draws our attention to the methodical by telling us there is a method
in the madness, though method and not madness is all there is to see,
when another's every winter is the winter of his discontent, when a
third cannot complain of the light without calling it religious as
well as dim, when for a fourth nothing can be rotten outside the State
of Denmark, or when a fifth, asked whether he does not owe you 1s.
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