Many thanks for all that interesting information. I had long imagined
that a petard was a piece of rope or something. I suppose I should have
looked it up myself.
John
>----Original Message----
>From:
[log in to unmask]
>Date: 16/10/2013 22:46
>To:
<[log in to unmask]>
>Subj: Re: pat snap>>>>> .!.
*>
>
>Perhaps your builder was French and letting fly, so to speak,
Pat. See below (not my own scholarship )
>The phrase 'hoist with one's
own petar[d]' is often cited as 'hoist by one's own petar[d]'. The two
forms mean the same, although the former is strictly a more accurate
version of the original source. A petard is, or rather was, as they
have long since fallen out of use, a small engine of war used to blow
breaches in gates or walls. They were originally metallic and bell-
shaped but later cubical wooden boxes. Whatever the shape, the
significant feature was that they were full of gunpowder - basically
what we would now call a bomb.
>
>The device was used by the military
forces of all the major European fighting nations by the 16th century.
In French and English - petar or petard, and in Spanish and Italian -
petardo.
>
>The dictionary maker John Florio defined them like this in
1598:
>
>"Petardo - a squib or petard of gun powder vsed to burst vp
gates or doores with."
>
>The French have the word 'péter' - to fart,
which it's hard to imagine is unrelated.
>
>Petar was part of the
everyday language around that time, as in this rather colourful line
from Zackary Coke in his workLogick, 1654:
>
>"The prayers of the
Saints ascending with you, will Petarr your entrances through heavens
Portcullis".
>
>Once the word is known, 'hoist by your own petard' is
easy to fathom. It's nice also to have a definitive source - no less
than Shakespeare, who gives the line to Hamlet, 1602:
>
>"For tis the
sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar".
>
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>Bill
>
>
>> On 17 Oct 2013, at 4:44 am, Patrick McManus
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Cheers Doug and Lawrence
-I was sort of remembering also Hoffnung's
>> 'Bricklayer petarded is
such a nice word -well the builder was standing by
>> the door and the
hoist blew up severly injuring him and also poetic licence
>> P old P
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Poetryetc: poetry and
poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of Douglas
Barbour
>> Sent: 16 October 2013 17:18
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: pat snap>>>>> .!.*>
>>
>> Play on, P (although L might
have a point)...
>>
>> D
>> On 2013-10-16, at 2:28 AM, Patrick McManus
<[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> ACCIDENT
>>>
>>>
Accident
>>> sad accident
>>> terrible accident
>>>
>>> a builder
>>>
was petarded
>>> by his own hoist
>>>
>>>
>>> pmcmanus
>>> r401
>>> I
am enjoying myself playing with sayings Saying with playings
>>
>>
Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/>> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>>
>> Latest books:
>> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila
E Murphy)
>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962>> Recording
Dates
>> (Rubicon Press)
>>
>> Art is always the replacing of
indifference by attention.
>>
>> Guy Davenport
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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