Post by SUVFan on Aug 5, 2023 7:23:10 GMT -5
Of course
Today, of course, we all know the two word phrase means "yes".
I learned this morning from a feature in a daily email subscription that it wasn't always so.
This article at a website called traces the history of the short phrase, starting with its roots in the:
From there, the preposition "of" was inserted in front of the noun to mean more or less that something followed a known course or pattern. Over the course of a few centuries, starting in the 1300s, the meaning of the phrase underwent a transition. "By the late 1700s, of course had taken on an even more concentrated version of that meaning: “naturally” or “obviously.”" The earliest example is detailed at the link.
Today, of course, we all know the two word phrase means "yes".
I learned this morning from a feature in a daily email subscription that it wasn't always so.
This article at a website called traces the history of the short phrase, starting with its roots in the:
Latin noun cursus, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as the “action of running,” a “path taken or to be followed,” and a “method of proceeding,” among other meanings. Those didn’t change much as the term passed into other languages, including French (cours) and English (course).
Within just a few decades, people had made the leap from using of course as a qualifier meaning “naturally” or “obviously” to using it as an affirmative answer that worked wherever one of those terms could also work. How the expression has managed to remain pretty common throughout all these years is anyone’s guess. Maybe its staying power is related to its versatility: Depending on the context, of course can express condescension (as in “Duh!”), realization (like “Eureka!” in a light bulb moment), enthusiasm (e.g. in reply to “Will you marry me?”), and much more. That, and it rolls off the tongue a little better than, say, “Such is the normal course of events!”
