'long and short of it '

Posted by ESC on June 18, 2004

In Reply to: 'long and short of it ' and 'canary'/canaries (shakespeare) posted by Courbel on June 17, 2004

:
: I need help with a couple of things:

: i)the meaning of 'the short and the long of it'
: ii) the meaning of 'canary'/'canaries'

: this is the source:

: 1) MISTRESS QUICKLY (to Falstaff)

: Marry, this is the short and the long of it;
: You have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis
: wonderful. The best courtier of them all,
: when thecourt lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary.

: W. Shakespeare
: (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, scene 2)

: thanks!

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT -- "In sum; the heart of the matter. If you have told it 'long' and told it 'short,' you have surely told it all. Sometimes it was reversed: 'the short and the long of it.' Robert Manning of Brunne wrote in his 'Langtoft's Chronicle' " 'To say longly or schorte, alle (that) arms bare.'" From The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).

Canaries I'm still looking for.

• Canary = quandary ESC 18/June/04