phrases, sayings, idioms and expressions at

Wrong Forum

Posted by Bruce Kahl on April 16, 2003

In Reply to: Reality check posted by R. Berg on April 16, 2003

: : : : : : Maybe I need to get out more, but I am stumped again. The clue was "Fourth estate" and the answer was "Press".

: : : : : Fourth estate = journalists. By coincidence, the OED's Word of the Day is "fourth."

: : : : Any idea how this term came about? What is its usage? Why fourth?

: : : FOURTH ESTATE - "the press, now outdated and used ironically. Books of quotations usually credit Edmund Burke with coinage, thanks to a citation by historian Thomas Carlyle in 'Heroes and Hero-Worship' written in 1839: 'Burke said that there were three estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than them all.' When diligent research failed to turn up the phrase in anything Burke said or wrote, some quotation detectives assumed Carlyle was referring to Lord Macaulay, who said in 1828: 'The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.' 'Fourth estate' had been used in both England and France, usually in reference to 'the mob' (the other estates being the king, the clergy and the commons, all powers whose agreement was necessary for legislation). The OED suggests that Lord Brougham used it in Commons in 1823 applied to the press, 'and at that time is was treated as original.' The vote of this lexicographer for the coiner of this phrase goes to English essayist William Hazlitt, who wrote on the character of William Cobbett in an 1821 'Table Talk'. 'He is a kind of 'fourth estate' in the politics of the country.'." From Safire's New Political Dictionary by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993).

: : I'll bite.

: : ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant,
: : quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat,
: : fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.
: : nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque impotens noli,
: : nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
: : sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.

: : When then those many joking things happened,
: : which you wanted and the girl didn't not want,
: : truly bright suns shone for you.
: : Now already she does not want; you also, powerless one, do not want,
: : and do not follow who flees, and do not live wretched,
: : but with a hardened mind endure, be firm.

: : Catullus and the puella (check out Quinn on the difference between
: : Lesbia and puella, the gist of which is that, when Catullus and Lesbia are
: : most in synch, she is "Lesbia," otherwise "mea puella," "puella," "mulier," and
: : even "illa," in decreasing order of like-mindedness) are not in synch. The
: : litotes in the second line makes this clear that she went along with what
: : was going on (the appearance was the same) but the interior motivation was
: : unequal. Now the break is pronounced and has proceeded to the level of
: : external dissention and schism. He is powerless to change this, and with
: : uncharacteristically strong imperatives (note the more gentler and more
: : colloquial subjunctive in lines one and two of the whole poem) he commands
: : himself to get control.

: : Next idea is to correct any
: : misinterpretations,
: : ok ro??

: : Sincerely,
: : Bruce Kahl

: Bruce, did you mean to put all that under "Fourth estate"? It landed there.

Too many browsers open at once.
Mea culpa, mea MAXIMA culpa,
b

© 1997 – 2024 Phrases.org.uk. All rights reserved.