The Project.

On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 03:22:31PM -0400, Padraic Brown wrote:

> Martin said to his man        _fie man fie_
> Martin said to his man        _who's the fool now?_
Funny, I almost quoted this when the word "fie" came up, although I
hadn't realised this was what you had in mind.

It's been suggested that M. Said to his Man was based on a similar Scots
song, of which I can now only remember a few snatches, but for "fie man,
fie man!" you had "wha's fu'! wha's fu'!" and for "who's the fool now"
"wha's fu' nu?". So the "fool" may have arisen from a misinterpretation of
Scots "full" here used to mean "overtired, legless, smashed, off one's
face" etc. Anyway an idiom possibly worth stealing.

Keith

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