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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006BrE: There is the devil to pay
Hello: "There is the devil to pay" Is this anything like Faust?:-) ---- "How do you like your work?" interposed Margaret. He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying into his work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he had at last penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing upon its walls, and so were the very tea-cups, with their delicate borders of wild strawberries. But he would not let Romance interfere with his life. There is the devil to pay then. E.M. Foster, Howards End Text, p. 158 http://www.enotes.com/howards-end-text/72917 ---- Thanks. Marius Hancu > Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > http://www.enotes.com/howards-end-text/72917 > ---- Certainly some claim it derives from the Faustian idea. But then others claim it derives from "devil" being a shipboard term for a seam in the planking and "pay" being a nautical term for covering with tar. The full expression is said to be "The devil to pay and no pitch hot" - ie a difficult, nearly impossible job. Or you might simply take "the devil" as a mild swearword for "a lot" - as in "It cost the very devil to buy a commission in the Lancers" - or for something difficult - as in "It was a devil of a job to get the car started". In the passage you quote, I would say the man is thinking that, if he let Romance into his life, there would be all hell to pay.  SignatureJohn Dean Oxford > But then others > claim it derives from "devil" being a shipboard term for a seam in the > planking and "pay" being a nautical term for covering with tar. The full > expression is said to be "The devil to pay and no pitch hot" - ie a > difficult, nearly impossible job. I like it. Now that I finished seeing "To the Ends of the Earth" series on PBS, I think I'm prepared to understand this interpretation:-) Thanks. Marius Hancu [snip] > Certainly some claim it derives from the Faustian idea. But then others > claim it derives from "devil" being a shipboard term for a seam in the [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > something difficult - as in "It was a devil of a job to get the car > started". [snip] This excerpt from OED2 confirms your comments (for the most part): j. the devil to pay. Supposed to refer to the alleged bargains made by wizards, etc., with Satan, and the inevitable payment to be made to him in the end. It has also been attributed to the difficulty of 'paying' or caulking the seam called the 'devil', near a ship's keel, whence the expanded form 'the devil to pay and no pitch hot'. But there is no evidence that this is the original sense, and it has never affected the general use of the proverb. 1711 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 28 Sept. (Farmer), And then there will be the devil and all to pay. 1728 Vanbr. & Cib. Prov. Husb. v. i. 93 In comes my Lady Townly here..who..has had the Devil to pay yonder. 1738 Swift Polite Convers. 179, I must be with my Wife on Tuesday, or there will be the Devil and all to pay. 1820 Byron in Moore Life & Lett. (1833) III. 63 There will be the devil to pay, and there is no saying who will or who will not be set down in his bill. 1837 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. I. 72 Had he been laid up at present, there would have been the very devil to pay. 1892 A. Birrell Res Judic. xii. 272 Then, indeed-to use a colloquial expression-there would be the devil to pay. > [snip] > > Certainly some claim it derives from the Faustian idea. But then others [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > evidence that this is the original sense, and it has never affected the > general use of the proverb. [...] That's No 22j under _devil_; curiously, it doesn't refer back to 13 under the same head: " 13. Naut. 'The seam which margins the waterways on a ship's hull' (Smyth Sailor's Word-bk.); 'a seam between the garboard-strake and the keel' (Funk and Wagnall). Hence various writers derive the phrase 'the devil to pay and no pitch hot'; but this is prob. only a secondary and humorous application of 'the devil to pay': cf. 22j." I'm permanently puzzled about why people like these unproved suggestions for the origin of various expressions which can be explained more convincingly in other ways: brass monkeys, for example. I wonder if there may sometimes be a psychological link with the human desire for conspiracy explanations of straightforward events (or even some people's wish to have diseases beyond the reach of conventional medicine -- my favourite so far being a man I met who had been persuaded that, if he had white coffee with sugar, he would have little worm-things coming out of his fingernails). SignatureMike. >> Hello: >> [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] >In the passage you quote, I would say the man is thinking that, if he let >Romance into his life, there would be all hell to pay. If he let the sort of life he calls Romance, which he dreams about, and experiences in his contact with the Schlegels, get mixed up with hs real life, in a different social class, with rather humdrum and unsatisfying work, then attempting to reconcile the two would be virtually impossible and too painful to contemplate. He can only cope with the two different worlds by keeping them separate. (The term used in modern psychological parlance is "cognitive dissonance".) SignatureKaty Jennison spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ > >> He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying into > >> his work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he had at [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > virtually impossible and too painful to contemplate. He can only cope > with the two different worlds by keeping them separate. Thoroughly messed-up bloke, on the whole:-) BTW, I was brought to a halt by your "If he let," took me a bit to recognize the "Should he let" meaning in it. The irregular verb, same in the past tense, dealt me the confusion. But I am more used to "allow" in such contexts. Marius Hancu >> If he let the sort of life he calls Romance, which he dreams about, >> and experiences in his contact with the Schlegels, get mixed up with [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >in the past tense, dealt me the confusion. But I am more used to >"allow" in such contexts. You'er right, "allowed" would have been better. SignatureKaty Jennison spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @ |
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