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Is there a linguist in the house?
Posted on: January 4, 2009 - 9:05pm
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Is there a linguist in the house?
"Say my peace" or "Say my piece"? What's the origin of this phrase?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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No offense, but I'm not interested in guesses. I want sources, man!!
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
It's looking to me like the correct version is "piece", the other one being a sort of malapropism.
The best thing you can probably do in this situation is consult a dictionary. I'd like to go for the OED, but I don't have one available here at home, nor a subscription to the online version.
But, using what we have:
Dictionary.com on PIECE:
29. give someone a piece of one's mind.
33. speak one's piece, to express one's opinion; reveal one's thoughts upon a subject: I decided to speak my piece whether they liked it or not.
Merriam-Webster on PIECE:
5: a literary, journalistic, artistic, dramatic, or musical composition
9: opinion , view <spoke his piece>
— piece of one's mind
: a severe scolding : tongue-lashing11: instance , example <silly piece of nonsense> <a nice piece of acting>
The dictionaries don't have much on PEACE that would support its use in the phrase, but if we look at the idioms supplied by Dictionary.com:
Dictionary.com on PEACE:
...it seems highly probable that those who say "speak my peace" are committing a malapropism by confusing "speak my peace" with other common phrases like "speak now or forever hold your peace". So they deduce that if they are choosing to NOT hold their peace, then they must be speaking it, mustn't they? Thus, misunderstanding the original idiom and carrying that misunderstanding over into a second one via a homophone. So now we have people who insist on speaking their peace, whatever that is supposed to mean. But we see how a person can make an understandable mistake here.
All dictionary evidence leans toward "piece". I only wish I could get into the OED so that we could talk etymology! Good dorky fun, but probably not necessary.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
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Yeah, I don't have an OED either. Thomathy's a linguist, right? Maybe he can chime in on this at some point, though it does appear that "piece" seems to be in the lead right now.
I did a google search on "speak my piece" and "speak my peace" and piece was the more common usage, but that doesn't mean anything, considering that "irregardless" has over a million and a half hits.
I really want to know the etymology of the phrase. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that both usages have some sort of basis in history.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Cool. Thanks, Eloise.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
They are two different phrases that have different contexts.
To see how this works, I offer the Benny Hill version:
“I'm not getting any better, come home”.
And:
“I'm not getting any, better come home”.
=
Oh?
So what's the etymology of "speak my peace"?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Are you offering a treaty or giving an opinion?
=
I'm working on official linguist status myself, but Thomathy actually has a degree already, so I'm sure he could out-linguist me all over the place. =D
Technically a valid point, but I don't think it's what he's looking for.
I mean, you could similarly argue that both "kiss my arse" and "kiss my ass" are both accurate, but one is referring to kissing an animal and one is referring to kissing a part of human anatomy. However, only one of those has idiom status. So if you entered a thread that was asking whether it was "kiss my arse" or "kiss my ass", I think it's safe to say the person has a phrase problem, not a word problem. Our friend Hamby appears to have a phrase problem.
*Note: arse/ass distinction works better in UK than US. Sorry.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
AiGS, he's not looking for a definition of the phrase, but an etymology for it.
i.e. what is its source?
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
What I can find on 'say my peace' is that it is probably an error, much like other lexical substitutions like 'piece of mind' (peace of mind).
As fas as I can tell the original context of the phrase would be to a recited or expected response/speech (as in Eloise's earliest attested example) and later as something that might be uttered if one wishes to interject, but has not been given the opportunity.
In my searches it seems apparent that 'say my peace' is an error borne of the incorrect interpretation of 'keeping one's peace' (speak or forever hold your peace) as withholding one's say ('not having your say'). It seems also the the substitution is made out of the ease of that interpretation, but that it also influenced the now common definition of 'say my piece'.
I would cite sources, but such as they are it's not worth it. All I did was search the internet and connect the dots by dates as well as I could. You could do the exact same thing as me. I'm reasonably sold on the validity of my conclusion, but hopefully once I'm home and have access to more resources, I can verify that for you and point you to a coroborating analysis or at least coroborating sources.
Edit: The more I search on this the more apparent it is that 'speak my peace' is an error, not just of a substitution, but of blatant Christian ignorance. Every variation of the phrase that I can try that contains 'peace' in google searches returns top links to either a Christian website or a biblical passage and there seems to be a lot of misinformation about the origin and meaning of the phrase (many thanks to the substitution for that) and there even appears to be some people who have validated the phrase and suggest it has a different meaning from 'speak one's piece' apparently ignorant of the error.
Ah, screw it, here's the links:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001884.html (for the passage on it being an error)
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/12654-i-said-my-peace-piece.html (for a use english debate)
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/36/messages/368.html (for a phrases.org debate)
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/25/messages/156.html (for the idea that there's different meanings)
It gets better. Do a google search. I'm just about braindead now. And before my consciousness winks out due to this bombardment of stupidity, I'm virtually positive that the trend toward 'say my peace' and the junk that follows it started in the US. blahburgjkethdsfkjgioeiopslkdjfgnlakjlaskdj!Q!!
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
How very appropriate! I confess I had no "atheist" motive in this. Someone called me on the phrase and I didn't know the answer, so I asked. It's just a lucky happenstance that it also appears to be a Christian hijacking that's responsible for the error.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Yeah, I didn't expect to find that. I mean, that kind of error is common and particularly between those two words. It'll be interesting if what I'm seeing is actually the case.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
It is interesting that American etymological dictionaries give the phrase "speak one's piece" a much more recent origin than their English counterparts. In the US it seems commonly attributed to having originated in the educational system and refers to recitals and the like.
According to my OED however the phrase is much older and refers to speaking one's mind (exactly how I would interpret it even today). It figures in, amongst other contemporary sources, a Ben Jonson play from the late 16th century where it is used to denote the opportunity to speak in a court of law - testimony whose length is limited by the protocol of the occasion and which must therefore be succinct, effective and concisely representative of the speaker's opinion. In other words, having "said one's piece" one is denied the opportunity to elaborate further or correct one's mistakes in delivery so one should have covered all one's bases and have nothing further to add anyway.
The "peace" version doesn't mean anything, and nor does it have a pedigree of any description outside of a very recent malapropistic and infrequent American usage evident using google searches and the like - a common enough occurrence amongst a population whose ambivalence to correct English usage reflects its polyglottal origin.
Which reminds me of a rather pertinent question - why do Americans who couldn't care less say that they could?
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I didn't have the time last night to do the requisite research. Apparently, Nordman has an OED that lists an earlier attestation that would make my assumption about the timeline of the definitions backward. Which actually serves only to convolute the American 'peace' version and would require some alteration of my explanation for the error further than it just being that common lexical substitution type.
I think, however, that Hamby should be satisfied that the original phrase contains, most assuredly, 'piece' and not 'peace'.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I am indeed quite satisfied. I have 'discovered' that 'speak my peace' is an 'invention' of the misinformed.*
* The scare quotes will only have meaning for you if you've been following THIS THREAD.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Shameless plug! Shameless plug!
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Whoever said shamelessness was bad?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Christianity makes a big thing about the fact that shamelessness was an idyllic state, if not the only one. Or at least it was before that bastard somewhere in orbit near the asteroid belt (they couldn't deduce much further in Iron Age Mesopotamia) tricked the innocents into owing him big time and feeling guilty while they're about it.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Touche...