Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: "women dressed to the nines"

"... And discovering that the room is crammed with women dressed to
the nines".
Dal contesto delle frasi precedenti e da quelle seguenti credo di aver
capito che l'espressione significhi qualcosa tipo "tirate a lucido" o
comunque vestite molto, molto bene.
Da dove deriva però l'espressione che - tra l'altro - non avevo mai
sentito?
Il libro è scritto in particolare per Americani che han necessità di
trasferirsi in Giappone, e quindi può darsi che l'espressione sia più
americana che britannica.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1558680713/103-6832471-3011841?v=glance
Grazie
ZioBit

ZioBit

sentito?
www.onelook.com
1 : to perfection 
2 : in a highly elaborate or showy manner <dressed to the nines> 
www.google.com
 ricerca di "dressed to the nines" il terzo link
http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-nin1.htm
QUOTE
From JSB: “What is the origin of the phrase to the nines?”
There are at least half a dozen theories about this one. What we do
know is that the phrase is first recorded in the late eighteenth
century in poems by Robert Burns.
One very persistent theory is that the British Army’s 99th Regiment of
Foot were renowned for their smartness, so much so that the other
regiments based with them at Aldershot were constantly trying to
emulate them—to equal “the nines”. The big problem with this theory is
that the story dates from the 1850s, and the phrase is older.
Other attempts at explanation connect it with the nine Muses, or with
the mystic number nine, or even perhaps reaching a standard of nine on
a scale of one to ten—not perfect, but doing very well.
Walter Skeat (the editor of the Oxford Etymological Dictionary and the
first secretary of the English Dialect Society) once proposed that it
could originally have been “dressed to the eyes”, which in medieval
English would have been “to then eyne”; the phrase could afterwards
have mutated by the same principle that caused “a norange” to change
to “an orange”. But the reverse problem of dating arises here, in that
if it were truly medieval in origin one would expect examples to have
turned up before Burns’ time. As a result, that suggestion is now not
accepted by anybody.
Short answer: nobody knows.
UNQUOTE
Sebastiano/less then a minute
-- 
Aisle bee ware yew wont mi two b;
Isle b yore ayes;
Aisle pleas u;
Yew no u knead mi, deer.

 Da dove deriva però l'espressione 
"Nobody knows" :(
http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-nin1.htm
-- 
Enrico C
"One over the eight"
eight drinks is ok but any more would make you drunk [Idiomsite.com]

 that the story dates from the 1850s, and the phrase is older**.
Haha! Ma cos'č, una barzelletta?
Ciao, FB

Short answer: nobody knows.
Eheh :) Questa mi sa che è quella corretta :) O - meglio - solo chi
l'ha inventata (oramai trapassato) la conosce ;)
Saluti e grazie
ZioBit

Sebastiano/less then a minute
... il "than" diventi "then" :)
Poi tutti liberissimi di dirmi che "than" si pronunci in modo diverso
da "then", ok, ma ciň non toglie che penso l'errore derivi nella
maggior parte dei casi da una "pronuncia in testa".
Saluti
ZioBit

l'ha inventata (oramai trapassato) la conosce ;)
Concordo. Mi sa che qui il "nobody knows" sia correttissimo. :)
Sebastiano


 Mi risulta che sia conosciutissimo ovunque 
Dressed to kill is a lot more common.
bye
GFC

GFC

Per la croncaca, "dressed to the nines" e' un'espressione che conosco,
ma che non credo di aver mai usato. "dressed to kill" magari lo direi,
"dressed to the nines" non mi verrebbe mai in mente spontaneamente.
-- 
Adam Atkinson (
gh...@mistral.co.uk
)
Un contributo alla lotta contro l'analfabetismo matematico in Italia:
http://www.mistral.co.uk/ghira/lotto/index.html