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March 06, 2007

Every Change A Sea

When did it become a mandatory cliche that every significant change be called a “sea change”?

I relish the sense of mysterious transformation to which Shakespeare applied the expression “sea-change” in The Tempest; when writers imprecisely apply it to simpler differences, I second Paul Brians’s advice: “Avoid the phrase; otherwise you will irritate those who know it and puzzle those who do not.”

Posted by AKMA at March 6, 2007 12:44 PM | Threadorati

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