AS LARGE AS LIFE

Posted by ESC on November 05, 2006

In Reply to: AS LARGE AS LIFE AND TWICE AS NATURAL posted by Victoria S Dennis on November 05, 2006

: : : : Dear experts,

: : : : Is the expression AS LARGE AS LIFE AND TWICE AS NATURAL a mere emphatic (or ironic?) variant of AS LARGE AS LIFE?

: : : : Thank you,
: : : : Yuri

: : : Yes, barring some peculiarity evident in the context. It certainly is ironic, but still probably just emphatic. SS

: : The way I've heard it: large as life and twice as ugly.

:
: "As large as life and twice as natural" is a quotation from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures through the the Looking Glass". The jazz/blues/rock musician Davey Graham used it as the title of an album in the 1960s, which helped to popularise the phrase among people who had never read Lewis Carroll.

There are people who have never read Lewis Carroll? That just shouldn't be.