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- etymology - What is the origin of rings a bell? - English Language . . .
For example, he struck a bell when the dogs were fed If the bell was sounded in close association with their meal, the dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell with food After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling Another possible origin is the one this page advocates:
- idioms - For whom the bell tolls - origin of ask not instead of . . .
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls" is a popular cliche My understanding is that it comes from John Donne's Meditation XVII (1623) But in Donne's poem, the line is any man's death diminishes me,
- orthography - Bell crank, bell-crank or bellcrank? - English Language . . .
The first form, " bell crank " tells me that we are talking about a crank which turns actuates a bell The second form " bell-crank " tells me that we are talking about bell-shaped crank, or a specialty crank that is only useful for cranking bells, without saying anything of its shape
- nouns - Why is the word pepper used for both capsicum (e. g. bell . . .
The Online Etymology Dictionary states that Latin piper is the source of the English word (as well as “German Pfeffer, Italian pepe, French poivre, Old Church Slavonic pipru, Lithuanian pipiras, Old Irish piobhar, Welsh pybyr, etc ”) It's ultimately from Sanskrit and originally referred to the Old World's Piper genus The New World's Capsicum genus came to be called “pepper” in the
- Interjection for the sound of a bell - English Language Usage Stack . . .
That is an interesting question in its own right - what part of speech is "boom!"? If a human would exclaim it, I believe it would be an interjection If a bell produces the sound, is it still an interjection? What I meant by the question is that I wasn't looking for a noun ("a ringing") or verb ("to ring") The noun, verb and interjection (?) could all be said to be onomatopoetic, as far as I
- What do you call the sound of a bell? - English Language Usage Stack . . .
If you wanted to describe the sound of a small brass bell that you can hold in your hand (this is an example image of what I mean - what word would you use? Brrring? Bling?
- What is the origin of the idiom with all the bells and whistles?
The Phrase Finder has an interesting assumption: Another possibility is that the expression derived from the work of the English cartoonist and sculptor Rowland Emett He created cartoons and contraptions, in a similar eccentric and whimsical style to the earlier artist, William Heath Given that 'bells and whistles' appears to be an American phrase, the archetypally English Emett might seem
- A figure of speech to illustrate the irreversibility of an action
Personally I like "You can't unring that bell" as deadrat mentioned above The phrase refers to the fact that you can't un-hear a bell that has been rung There's a nice essay about its history here: Unring the Bell (impossibility of taking back a statement or action)
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