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cosmos60
02-17-2008, 10:34 AM
hi guys!
i need your help...
i want to know the origin of the phrase ''do not burn the candle at both ends''..
it's really really important...
kilted exile
02-17-2008, 10:36 AM
see here (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/burning-the-candle-at-both-ends.html)
cosmos60
02-19-2008, 06:00 AM
hi all!
thanx kilted exile!
i allready got this one.. it only mentions the time when it was first coined(18th century) & what does it mean but where??? this is what i wanna know?
kilted exile
02-19-2008, 01:17 PM
From the link:


the phrase derives from an earlier French version. Randle Cotgrave recorded it in A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611:

'Brusler la chandelle par les deux bouts'. [To burn the candle by the two ends]

The where would be France.
Kafka's Crow
02-19-2008, 03:39 PM
BBC online did an excellent article on the origin of metaphors today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7252561.stm
cosmos60
02-20-2008, 03:38 AM
Allright!
Thanx
AuntShecky
02-20-2008, 11:39 AM
from Edna St. Vincent Millay:
"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light."

Ah, if Edna had been a child of the Computer Age, and had posted this on the web, would someone reply that she had
used a "cliché"?