Re: Dear
at a penny - cheap at half the price
Posted
by ESC on February 01, 2002 In Reply to: Re:
Dear at a penny - cheap at half the price 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.
: : : : "Nothing is cheap that
is superfluous,
: : : : for what one does not need is dear at a penny."
:
: : : Mestrius Plutarchus a.k.a Plutarch (circa 45 - 125 A.D.)
: : : : Another
famous person said almost the same thing but in a different way:
: : : : "Sometimes
one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
: : : : -- Albert Einstein
:
: : Aha! Thanks to Bruce for finding the original. We were all having trouble
making sense of the English sentence because it's illogical, and I had just begun
to wonder whether Marta was trying to translate something from a book where the
editor and proofreader had slipped up and a "not" was omitted: "what one does
not need is dear . . . "
: : This time the emperor was naked, and trying to
count the stripes on his necktie was a waste of effort. Anyway, it'd be something
like "lo que no se necesita es caro a uno centavo." Perdóneme; hace muchos aņos
desde estoy en la escuela.
: We are a fine bunch. Our services would be dear
at a penny, though I enjoyed the laugh.
Yea Bruce.
- This
is a quiz. Bruce Kahl 02/02/02 (1)
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