[Hartwood] Work of the day

[doerksen at island.net]

"Small beer" for pop? I could get into that! Sometimes I call water,  
"Adam's Ale"...

Halima
-- 
http://www.island.net/~doerksen/

Fri 21 Feb 2014 08:37:50 AM PST, quoting Valorie Lennox  
<vlennox at pacificcoast.net>:

> I love these definitions John. Thank you for posting them. I'm always
> entertained and educated by them.
> So...do you think we could refer to soda pop as 'small beer' in the Current
> Middle Ages?
> Keep well,
> Val/Elspeth
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hartwood [mailto:hartwood-bounces at tirrigh.org] On Behalf Of John Mail
> Sent: February-21-14 7:28 AM
> To: Lionsgate; hartwood at tirrigh.org
> Subject: [Hartwood] Work of the day
>
> small beer \SMAWL-BEER\
>
>
>
>
> noun
>
> 1 :    weak or inferior beer
>
> 2 :    something of small importance : trivia
>
>
>
>
>       The money we spend on cable is small beer  
> compared to the mortgage
> payment we have to come up with every month.
>
> "The main drink was 'small beer', which had a low alcohol content—just
> enough to preserve it—and was drunk by almost everyone, from children to old
> men, instead of water." — From an article by Alex Fensome in The Dominion
> Post (New Zealand), January 13, 2014
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>       "Small beer" dates from Shakespeare's day.  
> The Bard didn't coin it (he
> would have been just a child in 1568, the date of the first documented
> instance of "small beer"), but he did put the term to good use. In Henry VI,
> Part 2, for example, the rebel Jack Cade declares that, when he becomes
> king, he will "make it felony to drink small beer." In Othello, Desdemona
> asks Iago to describe a "deserving woman." Iago responds by listing praises
> for ten lines, only to conclude that such a woman would be suited "to suckle
> fools, and chronicle small beer"; in other words, to raise babies and keep
> track of insignificant household expenses. Desdemona quickly retorts,
> declaring Iago's assertion a "most lame and impotent conclusion."
>
>