To speak repeatedly and boringly about a topic.
To speak repeatedly and boringly about a topic.
The term ‘harp on’ has been known since the 16th century. The metaphor is to the tedious repeated plucking of a single string on a harp.
The first use of it that I know of ‘harp on’ in print is a quotation fromA disputacion of purgatorye, a 1531 work by the English priest John Frith:
“Se how he harpeth all of one stringe.”
Shakespeare also used ‘harping on’ later, in Hamlet, 1602:
“Still harping on, my daughter?”
Trend of harp on in printed material over time
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