Discussion:Major Dundee

message: n'est-ce pas, l'article méritait bien quelques Ko supplémentaires... D'autant qu'elle est foisonnante, a été lamentablement  charcutée, et que le contexte géo-politico-culturel de l'époque est complexe. Chapeau (à mon avis) aux écrivains du scénario (pour les réf. historiques et les dialogues)  - et aux accessoiristes : les fusil Henry en particulier, et le baby howitzer démontable et portable en 3 parties : roues, prolonge, fut du canon . D'accord, il n'y avait en principe pas de lanciers français du type chevau-léger au Mexique (uniquement, d'après Expédition française au Mexique ,  le 12° de Chasseurs à cheval, plus 3 régiments de Chasseurs d'Afrique, et le 5° Hussard) , je pense que l'armée mexicaine a dû fournir les figurants (& probablement aussi le canon), d'ailleurs (il me semble) , les pennons de leurs lances sont vert-blanc-rouge...Pero caramba,  que pelea en el Rio Grande !  . T.y. Arapaima (d) 30 mai 2011 à 11:58 (CEST)
thread_title:  Comme c'est une oeuvre culte 

message: dit Dundee lors de la fête au village mexicain...J'ai demandé aux homologues de l'Oracle sur WP english , et j'ai eu une réponse pour le moins détaillée: 
-"Hello learned people ! I heard Charlton Heston in Major Dundee utter that expression, & I wonder what it means, & where it comes from. Is it an actual dog, or the partner of a fiddler ? Thanks beforehand, t.y. Arapaima (talk) 09:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
- "Well, it means 'very drunk.' According to the Wordsworth dictionary of proverbs, 2006 ed. the expression dates back to 1362, appearing in William Langland's Piers Plowman as "Thenne gon he go for to lyk a gleomonnes bicce, Sum tyme asyde and sum tyme arere." The dictionary also cites Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830), Northall's Folk Phrases (1894), and F.E. Taylor's Lancaster Sayings (1901), but doesn't give examples. I would say from the age of the expression, that bitch here refers to the fiddler's dog.
John Badcock's Slang: a dictionary of the turf, the ring, the chase, the pit, or bon-ton, and the varieties of life, forming the completest and most authentic lexicon balatronicum hitherto offered to the notice of the sporting world (1823) suggests "'as drunk as a fiddler's bitch' would imply that the patient has the buz [sic] of music in his ears, and will not sit quietly, but danceth about."
T. Hilding Svartengren, in Intensifying Similies in English (1918) mentions the expression, but doesn't comment on it. It does, however note drunk as a fiddler, and comments "the fiddler was of old a frequent guest in taverns and ale-houses, as appears in numerous passages in Elizabethan writers." Further, it points to a similar expression: drunk as a tinker's bitch, and comments "Like master, like man or dog." So if the fiddler is likely drunk, his dog likely is too. The dissertation also discusses the common rhythms of these types of expressions, noting "there are also not a few extended dactylic types...thin as a newsome snipe, thins as a barber's pole, as fat as a bacon hog, drunk as a fiddler's bitch..." Bitch at the end of the expression makes it adhere to this rhytmn.
Whoops, just found one more thing. Forby, in Vocabulary of East Anglia, defines bitch as "a trull; the female companion of a vagrant. Ray has a tinker's bitch. Our tinkers do not keep bitches, but trulls. The fiddling vagabond, with us, is the only one who has such an establishment, and we found upon in an extremely coarse and offensive comparison, 'as drunk as a fiddler's bitch." I can't get a stand-alone definition of trull in the excerpt of Forby I have access to, but OED defines it as "A low prostitute or concubine; a drab, strumpet, trollop." So not apparently the fiddler's dog, but his lady friend of ill repute, at least to some ears. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 15:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)"
:Donc, ça signifie plutôt : "saoul comme une "partenaire" de violoniste"... Arapaima (d) 30 mai 2011 à 12:09 (CEST)
thread_title:  "''Drunk as a fiddler's bitch''"