Clear blue water

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on March 19, 2004

In Reply to: Clear blue water posted by R. Berg on March 19, 2004

: : : : : : : : : It is said about our dinosaur Pod when he encounters other kind of dinosaurs::

: : : : : : : : : Luckily for them, Pod's instinct to avoid their kind is too deeply ingrained.

: : : : : : : : : Feeling no *comfort factor*, he withdraws. As an added precaution, Pod puts some daylight between himself and the odd-sized animals.

: : : : : : : Thank you Henry,you

: : : : : : : : : My question: What does he mean by comfort factor", somehow it doen't make sense here.

: : : : : : : : : Thank you very much

: : : : : : : : : By the way I have a problem also with "put some daylight between himself..." but I stills have'nt try to dig into it.

: : : : : : : : Comfort factor is a safety margin.

: : : : : : : : "Put daylight between" means to create a clear gap between two things. A phrase popular recently in politics was to create/put/keep clear blue water between the policies of one party and another to show that they were different.

: : : : : : : Thank you Henry you helped me immensely.

: : : : : : Another one:
: : : : : : "Just around the corner a change is in the wind".

: : : : : : Does it mean that a change is expected soon?

: : : : : : Thanks. I found a confirmation to my guess.

: : : : That's what you call a mixed metaphor, isn't it?

: : : yes it is and it's kind of strange.

: : It's a combination of a Depression-era saying, "Prosperity is just around the corner" and (see archives) "winds of change."

: Coincidentally, today's Word of the Day at the Oxford English Dictionary (link below) is "clear water." It comes from rowing, where it denotes the space between two boats in a race. "Clear blue water" is discussed as deriving from that.

I'd like to add my opinion on "put some daylight between". That's similar to an expression in American football, which may be somewhat dated now. It's "run for daylight", referring to the ball carrier running for gaps where there are no other players, and therefore decreasing his chance of being tackled.

Clear blue water Miri Barak 19/March/04