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Smiles to you Bill!........thanks for
the interesting information........I didn't really expect anyone to give me an
explanation!!.......and so quick!!!.......I knew how to use the expression I
just didn't know what a T had to do with it!!.......Thanks to you I know a
little bit more then when I woke up this morning.......I am going to sneak in
that my long time friend and I are still that and plan on seeing each other
next May!!.........please don't post comments to the group site or I will be in
a heap of trouble from John!!........I do know what that expression
means!!!!!!.........have a wonderful day Bill and keep making us
smile!!!!
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 9:30
AM
Subject: Re: [iris-photos] Seedling For
comment
In a message dated
10/22/2003 10:53:00 AM Central Daylight Time, iris@syix.com writes:
perfect...........fits it to a T.........whatever that
expression
means
"We use this expression very commonly
in the sense of minute exactness, perfection; as, the coat fits to a T; the
meat was done to a T. It is easy to dismiss the origin of the expression as, I
am sorry to say, some of our leading dictionaries do, by attributing it to the
draftsman's T-square, which is supposed to be an exact instrument, but the
evidence indicates that the expression was in common English use before the
T-square got its name. 'To a T' dates back to the seventeenth century in
literary use and was undoubtedly common in everyday speech long before any
writer dared to or thought to use it in print. But it is likely that the name
of the instrument, 'T-square,' would have been in print shortly after its
invention, yet the first mention is in the eighteenth century. The sense of
the expression corresponds, however, with the older one, 'to a tittle,' which
appeared almost a century earlier, and meant 'to a dot,' as in 'jot or
tittle.' Beaumont used it in 1607, and it! is probably that colloquial use
long preceded his employment of the phrase..." From "2107 Curious Word
Origins, Sayings & Expressions from White Elephants to a Song and Dance"
by Charles Earle Funk (Galahad Books, New York, 1993).
Smiles from an
aficionado of the rhetorical who liked the seedling,
Bill Burleson
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