On 10/30/2013 3:43 AM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> ...
> But I did share a staffroom at one point with a Greek woman and went through
> the stages of betrothal, engagement and marriage there - this involved
> extravagant parties, ostentatious expenditure and a lot of bad photography
> (the snaps and left over cake made an appearance at work and required fulsome
> praise). I got out of there before the first child, to my relief.
> In that case, betrothal was an agreement to marry (that we'd call
> engagement), followed by a much more formal 'engagement' process which
> involved family meetings, approvals and jewellery - lots of jewellery - 18kt
> minimum.
> The dictionary seems a bit thin in the face of that lot, no?
Not really. It's an American dictionary, Merriam-Webster, and agrees with other
on-line sources, including the 'British
& World English' entry of the Oxford Dictionary.
My off-line (paper) Random House dictionary of the English Language (1966),
another authoritative US dictionary, agrees,
and adds "Archaic. to promise to marry.", which sounds a lot like your
experience of "betrothal was an agreement to
marry (that we'd call engagement) "
Ken is a traditional, US style Christian, born and raised in the US Midwest and
still living there. To assume that he
meant something other than engagement, as practiced here, would seem foolish to
me. :-)
He says he meant a different, archaic, Old World usage - OK.
Unrepentant Pedant Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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