More random fiction complaints!

[conuly]

Sooooo if you are confronted with more silverware at the table than you're accustomed to using, the rule is outside in. You start on the edges and work your way inwards, and unless your dining companion simply enjoys fucking with you they will tell you that rather than muttering "That's the wrong spoon" every time you try to eat your soup. The only people who actually have to remember which spoon is which are the ones setting the table, which brings us to point two:

Nobody's going to set the table with more utensils than they actually plan on using. Nobody. If it's a three course meal, that's three courses worth of utensils, not twenty. There is such a thing as being just too much, and at a certain point everybody's laughing at their faux pas instead of yours. (Then again, if your so called friends have spent the meal telling you you're using the wrong fork without telling you how to find the right fork, maybe they're just rude assholes.)

You can add this to the list of hills on which I'll die.

Comments

[conuly]

It occurs to me that you might not have access to the OED via your library, so I looked up the various elements for you. The OED *is* the be-all and end-all of the etymology world. You're going to have to show quite a lot of evidence if you think they're mistaken.

On span-new: Origin: A borrowing from early Scandinavian. Etymon: Norse spán-nýr.
Etymology: < Old Norse spán-nýr, < spán-n chip + ný-r new, with normal shortening of the first element.
Dialect variants are spander- (spanther- ), spanker- , spang-new . See also bran-span-new brand-new adj.; spank span-new adj.; and spick and span adj., n., and adv.
(Show Less)

Oldest citation is ▸ c1300 Havelok (Laud) (1868) 968 Þe cok bigan of him to rewe, and bouthe him cloþes, al spannewe.

On spike which, as I said, if it means "knife" in the phrase "spick and span" we will expect to see evidence that it meant "knife" independently as well. I'll only quote the definitions with citations prior to ~1600, at which point we already know spick and span was in circulation:


a. A sharp-pointed piece of metal (esp. iron) or wood used for fastening things securely together; a large and strong kind of nail.

b. A pointed piece of steel used for driving into the touch-hole of a cannon in order to render it unserviceable.

2a. A sharp-pointed piece of metal (or other hard material) which is, or may be, so fixed in something that the point is turned outwards; a stout sharp-pointed projecting part of a metal object.

Notice no use of spike to indicate "knife" - and "spick" alone is just the same.

On the specific phrase "spick and span new":

Etymology: Emphatic extension of span-new adj. The same first element appears in the synonymous Dutch and Flemish spikspeldernieuw, -splinternieuw (West Flemish -spankelnieuw).

Does anybody suggest that splinter in Dutch means knife? Does it mean knife?

And then the derivation of "spick and span" refers us back to "spick and span new".

If another etymology is valid, then we'd expect to see evidence. Can you go back to your source and tell me what, exactly, they cite as evidence? Or is it just speculation without quotations to back it up?

[peristaltor]

Can you go back to your source and tell me what, exactly, they cite as evidence? Or is it just speculation without quotations to back it up?

As I said in the other comment, if I find the book, I'll do that. As I said before, I doubt he stated the phrase definition as fact, but rather offered it as shared speculation. (My books are currently overflowing from shelves, and it's a tiny thing, that book, but I'll make an effort.)

I did find the North quote from his Plutarch thing. Interesting. That's enough evidence for me to dig for Petrosky just a bit more skookum.

[conuly]

As I said before, I doubt he stated the phrase definition as fact, but rather offered it as shared speculation.

If he's any sort of actual historian he should know better than to speculate without evidence. That's basically just making things up.