Fwd: A.Word.A.Day--Darby and Joan

[Craig L Russell <Cr...@Sun.COM>]

Living in Harmony, no doubt.

Craig

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Wordsmith <ws...@wordsmith.org>
> Date: November 22, 2007 9:04:14 PM PST
> To: linguaphile@wordsmith.org
> Subject: A.Word.A.Day--Darby and Joan
>
> This week's theme: eponyms -- words coined after someone.
>
> Darby and Joan (DAHR-bee and joan) noun
>
>    A devoted old couple leading a quiet, uneventful life.
>
> [After a couple named in a 18th century poem in The Gentleman's  
> Magazine
> (London).]
>
> In 1735 Henry Woodfall, a printer's apprentice, wrote a ballad titled
> "The joys of love never forgot: a song" about a happily married  
> elderly
> couple. His inspiration for those characters was his own boss John  
> Darby
> and his wife Joan:
>
>   "Old Darby, with Joan by his side,
>    You've often regarded with wonder:
>    He's dropsical, she is sore-eyed,
>    Yet they're never happy asunder ..."
>
> As you can imagine, he wrote this poem after Darby's death. This poem
> in turn became an inspiration for follow-up poems and eventually Darby
> and Joan became a metaphor. In the UK, clubs for old people are still
> called Darby and Joan clubs.
>
> -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
>
>   "On the shores of holy Lake Manosarovar there is a nameless hotel  
> run by
>    a very elderly couple, a sort of Tibetan Darby and Joan."
>    Karen Swenson; At Tibetan Hotels, Don't Expect the Light To Be  
> Left On;
>    The Wall Street Journal (New York); Dec 4, 2001.
>
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> ...................................................................... 
> ......
> To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave  
> badly and
> call your bad behavior "righteous indignation" -- this is the  
> height of
> psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats. -Aldous  
> Huxley,
> novelist (1894-1963)
>
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> Pronunciation:
> http://wordsmith.org/words/darby_and_joan.wav
> http://wordsmith.org/words/darby_and_joan.ram
>
> Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/darby_and_joan.html
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Craig Russell
Architect, Sun Java Enterprise System http://java.sun.com/products/jdo
408 276-5638 mailto:Craig.Russell@sun.com
P.S. A good JDO? O, Gasp!