Re: "hewed to"

On Thursday 17 March 2005 01:09 pm, Roger Mills wrote:
> Sally Caves wrote:
>
> > >> Yet another English *usage* thread, but I found this
> > >> curious:
> > >>
> > >> Mr. Wolfowitz's career has hewed to those same
> > >> unshrinking precepts, and in nominating him for the
> > >> presidency . . .
> (snip)
> > >> But "hewed to"? Anybody else seen the development of
> > >> "hew" along the lines of "cleave"?
> > >>
> Oddly enough, it sounds vaguely OK....???? though I don't think I've ever
> encountered it. Maybe the writer had a vague memory of "cleave" but couldn't
> come up with the word. ========================================
>
> > From: "Bryan Parry" <bajparry@...>
> >
> > > To be honest with you,  I have never heard "cleave"
> > > used to mean anything other than to pierce/split etc.
> > > Altho' I checked the dictionary, and it appears that
> > > you are not mistaken. All I can say is that must be an
> > > obscure usage of the word cleave, because I have never
> > > before come across it.
> >
> > You've never heard "he cleaves to the opinion that..."? or "The chiton
> > cleaves to the rock tenaciously?"  It's only ever used with the
> > preposition
> > for this meaning.
> >
> Well, I'd recognize those if I saw them in print, but I do feel it's a very
> archaic usage. If someone actually said it, you could, as the saying goes,
> knock me over with a feather. My only contact with the word is in the old
> Marriage ceremony (old Book of Common Prayer), where "a man shall leave his
> parents and cleave to his wife..." which may be lifted from the Bible.
>
> > Joe wrote:
> >
> > > It's an unusual form, too.  Wouldn't it be more normal to say 'hewn'?
> >
> > About as normal as it would be to say "he's cloven to the opinion that..."
> > :)
> True; that seems to have become strictly the adjectival form and only means
> 'split', as in "cloven hooves" also archaic to me, with religious/Biblical
> overtones-- a feature of pigs and other non-Kosher animals (IIRC) and....
> Satan.
>
> Hmm, there's also "cleft".
>
"To hew to a/the line" is a formula I have seen before. (In various
conjugations). It is a bit archaic (feels a bit 19th century). I think it has
fallen from use because the underlying metaphor (derived from
woodcutting/carpentry?) has passed out of common experience.

Google produces 18 hits for "hew to a line" and the first two are
woodworking-related. (The first one is for a specially bevelled hatchet that
lets you hew to a line better.) I didn't try googling the other conjugations,
but hewed is the correct past tense, while hewn to  line would be the past
participle.
--
Elyse Grasso

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