Re: "hewed to"

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Parry" <bajparry@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: "hewed to"


> 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. My dictionary does seem to
> suggest that they come from two different, albeit
> related, words.
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.

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..."
:)


> --- Sally Caves <scaves@...> 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 . . .
>>
>> This was from my on-line New York Times by Todd S.
>> Purdum.  It seems to me the writer meant "cleaved,"
>> a word I've always found curious, because it means
>> both "split apart" and "stick to."  It contains its
>> own antonym.  Now, it seems, "hew" has acquired an
>> antonym as well.  At least for Purdum.
>>
>> Hew: to cut down, to split or cut in half.
>>
>> But "hewed to"? Anybody else seen the development of
>> "hew" along the lines of "cleave"?
>>
>> Sally
>
> I have spread my dreams under your feet;
> Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
>
> -- William Butler Yeats
>
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