Curious English Words and Phrases: The Truth behind the Expressions We Use by Max Cryer

Author:Max Cryer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Language Arts & Disciplines/General
ISBN: Curious English Words and Phrases
Publisher: Exisle Publishing
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Lukewarm

We’re actually saying the same thing twice: as the ancestor of ‘luke’, language scholars point to the fourteenth-century English word hleow, which means warm. So if a thing is luke, it’s already been described as warm.

Luna rossa

Luna rossa means ‘red moon’, perhaps properly described as a weather phenomenon rather than an astronomical one. There needs to be considerable heat in the sun during the day, and sometimes during an Italian summer, the moon at night has a reddish tint – it is a luna rossa. The locals know this signifies that the summer heat is not going to go away just yet.

Unlike the phrase ‘blue moon’, which has an idiomatic significance in English, the phrase ‘red moon’ doesn’t seem to have any comparative significance in Italian, though Italian people will sometimes say Luna rossa stasera, domani sera bella: ‘There is a red moon tonight, so tomorrow will be wonderful.’ It has a faint similarity to the English expression, ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.’

The song ‘Luna Rossa’ is very well known, and it also has an air of romance, warmth, happiness, hope and good weather.

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