Further petrification and some peril

A judge in a fictional court case (so a distinguished critic and writer explained to us in the Christmas edition of Radio Times) is “petrified that if he decides there is no Santa, he’ll disillusion children . . .”.

The Society for the Care of Aged Metaphors* is already handling an earlier serious case of petrification (see blog of 26th October below): so, since the matter is sub judice, I will not confuse the issue myself - unless, of course, I am officially called to give evidence on behalf of the metaphor.

* A pity that this has to be abbreviated to SCAM, though. The Society for the Protection of Aged Metaphors won't do as a title either. We'll have to think again.

But the Radio Times writer interestingly continues, in his/her next sentence, “Glorious stuff - just right for these present parlous times”. It is the word ‘parlous’ that is interesting. How many of us have ever used it ? Would you recognise a parlous time if you passed one in the street ? The term is actually an old form of ‘perilous’ (= dangerous, risky) and is derived from Latin periculosus (of same meaning)’, from L periculum (= danger), the elements of which seem to signify a ‘little trial or test’: the ‘peri-’ bit found its way into Latin from the Greek verb peirao (= to try).

As well as ‘peril’, our words ‘experiment’ and ‘pirate’ are of the same family as ‘parlous’. But ‘parliament’ and ‘expire’ are not even distant relations.

Further petrification and some peril