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I think sometimes people don't realize that the two instances of "king" in the saying refer to different people. They therefore assume that "long live the king"
by mistercow 13y ago
I think sometimes people don't realize that the two instances of "king" in the saying refer to different people. They therefore assume that "long live the king" is an idiom for "RIP the king" or similar. The Lion King probably didn't help matters with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctJ9jZ-_fFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctJ9jZ-_fFc
- megablast 13y agoTaken that way, it is very strange for people to wish a long life to the king who just died.
- mistercow 13y agoPeople are used to idioms they don't understand though. They're much like words in that we learn their meaning from context, and the etymological content is more of a subconscious mnemonic than something we explicitly pay attention to. Sort of like being surprised when you first notice that "disintegrate" is "dis- integrate". This is particularly common with idioms because they often to get truncated over time so that their meaning is harder to extract from the content. If you've never heard "the pot calling the kettle black", but you've heard "pot: meet kettle", you'll likely get the meaning from context, and you'll have no idea what the connection is between hypocrisy, pots, and kettles.