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he was smitten with her ! doesn't sound too terrible !cheers P doing Yule cards On 11/12/2018 21:57, Bill Wootton wrote: > Thanks, Sheila, Doug. > > Wasn’t sure whether ‘smitten’ was the right word but checked with > Merriam-Webster and feel justified. > > Smite comes from an Old English word meaning “to smear or defile,” and the > meanings of the word continued to have negative connotations as the word > moved from Old English to Middle English and on to Early Modern English. > Most of its meanings over the centuries have had to do with striking, > hitting, injuring, punishing, or afflicting someone. The following is a > very partial list of the kinds of things people were getting smitten with > in books in the first half of the 17th century: leprosy, death, the plague, > blindness, fear, sorrow, remorse, a most stinking and vile disease, ulcers, > boils, the sword, fiery darts from heaven, the pox, barrenness, angels, > God’s displeasure/hand/scourges/rod/terrible thunderbolts/wrath. > > Cheers, > Bill > > On Wed, 12 Dec 2018 at 8:49 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > >> Ha: I read it first as ‘slaughter’ in the subject line, Bill. >> >> But the actual piece catches something there, how it occurs… >> >> Doug >> >>> On Dec 11, 2018, at 2:25 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >>> There’s an American laugh >>> >>> >>> A wordless hilarity-burst >>> >>> anywhere you go in Europe >>> >>> You just know when it starts up >>> >>> the words that follow >>> >>> will not be French >>> >>> or Spanish or Portuguese >>> >>> >>> It hangs >>> >>> in the smitten air >>> >>> welcome >>> >>> as cigar smoke >>> >>> >>> bw >>> >>> ######################################################################## >>> >>> To unsubscribe from the POETRYETC list, click the following link: >>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=POETRYETC&A=1 >> Douglas Barbour >> [log in to unmask] >> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/ >> >> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations >> 2 (UofAPress). >> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press). >> Listen. If (UofAPress): >> >> >> Oh, goddamnit, we forgot the silent prayer. >> >> Dwight D, Eisenhower >> [at a cabinet meeting] >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ######################################################################## >> >> To unsubscribe from the POETRYETC list, click the following link: >> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=POETRYETC&A=1 >> > ######################################################################## > > To unsubscribe from the POETRYETC list, click the following link: > https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=POETRYETC&A=1 ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the POETRYETC list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=POETRYETC&A=1