Re: What
one does need, is dear a penny
Posted by ESC
on February 01, 2002 In Reply to: Re: Nothing
is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does need, is dear a penny posted
by Word Camel on February 01, 2002
: : Hi everybody!
: : Pleased
to meet you. I'm a Spanish free-lance translator and I'm just happy that I've
found you ;-)
: : I hope you can help me with this sentence:
: : "Nothing
is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does need, is dear at a penny".
:
: I think I've understood its meaning (perhaps: superfluous things are always
expensive; necessary things are not). But I wonder if it is a phrase used in specific
situations and even if I have undestood it correctly.
: : Thanks in advance.
:
: MARTA
: Dear Marta,
: I have a different understanding of the phrase. I
think it means that nothing that isn't a necessity is can be considered cheap
because what one absolutely needs is expensive.
: Imagine an unemployed person
offered an ridiculously cheap price for a trip to Spain. Unfortunately because
this person can barely pay for the necessities, so it doesn't matter how inexpensive
the trip is, it can't be considered cheap.
: 'Dear' is used here in the sense
of expensive.
: I haven't heard the phrase used before. Where did you find
it?
I haven't heard this phrase either. The first part is easy to understand.
If you buy something useless at a reduced price,(like a ship in the desert), it's
not really a savings. You've wasted your money.
I'm having trouble with the
second part. If you really need something (like a heart transplant) it is cheap
at any price. But "what one does need, is dear at a penny" doesn't say that to
me. One of the meanings of "dear" is "expensive." ("Dictionary of Word Origins:
the Histories of More Than 8,000 English-Language Words" by John Ayto; Arcade
Publishing, New York, 1990). Something you really, really need wouldn't be expensive
at a penny.
R. Berg? Can you clear this up. I've muddied it enough.
|