posted on December 26, 2005 03:57:09 PM new
I've been out of town and away from the action. Any mention or announcement of a 10-cent listing day yet? If not, I have a bunch I want to launch tonight.
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posted on December 26, 2005 04:27:11 PM newBated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.
Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice: “Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, / Say this ...”. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: “Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.
For those who know the correct spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.
"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you." —George W. Bush, Gulfport, Miss., Sept. 20, 2005
Catch anything?