>Although I have not come across the phrase, I suspect we are dealing with
>a well-known phrase or saying signifying that 'times were hard'. The price
>of wool, and no doubt other necessities of life, was high, and therefore
>the farmer did not wish to part with more money than was absolutely
>necessary, as he anticipated that he might run short.
>
This is a really ingenious suggestion. Cloth seems to have been a more
likely filter than wool, the physical qualities of which would, as far as I
have been able to ascertain, perhaps tend to discount it for this purpose.
The main problem grammatically with "times were hard" is that an imperfect
would make more sense than the tense used, but it is still a very
interesting idea. Just a pity that Godefroy, Tobler-L., Wartburg, Cotgrave
and the proverbial dictionaries (e.g. Marowski, di Stefano, Hassell etc.)
haven't listed this as an attested meaning.
Many thanks again,
DARON
Daron Burrows, Trinity College, Oxford University.
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"Ce qui fait que si peu de personnes sont agreables dans la conversation,
c'est que chacun songe plus a ce qu'il veut dire qu'a ce que les autres
disent" (La Rochefoucauld)
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