Kevin Drum wonders why he's suddenly hearing the short-I pronunciation of "divisive" all of a sudden. Which reminds me of something that struck me earlier in the week: I'm hearing a lot more people say "hand-in-glove" these days than "hand-in-hand." Anyone have any ideas on why that might be? They mean roughly the same thing, right?
Is there a cooties outbreak I don't know about?
Rob
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Hand... Touching Hand...
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4 comments:
Actually, I consider "hand-in-hand" and "hand-in-glove" to have very distinct meanings.
"Hand-in-glove" is an expression of fit. It indicates a correspondence between two things. Taken at its literal extreme, the image suggests a sort of hierarchical pairing; the glove is designed to fit the hand; if done correctly, it fits "like a glove."
"Hand-in-hand" has always signified, to me, a uniting of individuals. I've taken it as implicit in this that the two things being united could be quite different just as easily as they could be similar. I can't say why, but I've also inferred this to be a union of equals.
Both expressions refer to a sort of pairing, but it seems to me that the two pairings are distinct. The pairing in one is subservient; in the other, it is elective and mutual.
Or at least that's how I see it.
That's how I saw it, too, but in many instances they seem almost interchangeable. Maybe I'm just hearing "hand in glove" misused a lot lately...
Circle, circle, dot, dot,now you have your cootie shot. No worries.
As for "divisive", I wonder if people aren't thinking of "derisive" when they say it, which I've heard pronounced both ways.
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