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4 responses to “in the spirit of ‘disgruntled’”

1. 2005/02/16

   Chris Samuel

   re: in the spirit of ‘disgruntled’

   As the man who gave me a copy of Brewers Phrase and Fable as a present, I thought you’d have checked there first for something like this! 🙂

   Pretext A pretence. From the Latin prætexta, a dress embroidered in the front worn by the Roman magistrates, priests, and children of the aristocracy between the age of thirteen and seventeen. The prætexta’tæ were dramas in which actors personated those who wore the prætexta; hence persons who pretend to be what they are not.

   So the answer (unless you’re going to be pedantic about Roman magistrates, etc) is no. 🙂

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2. 2005/02/16

   alecm

   re: in the spirit of ‘disgruntled’

   so that makes “false pretences” a tautology?

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3. 2005/02/16

   Chris Samuel

   re: in the spirit of ‘disgruntled’

   I don’t think so..

   Here’s a quote from Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition.

   FALSE PRETENCES, criminal law. False representations and statements, made with a fraudulent design, to obtain “money, goods, wares, and merchandise-” with intent to cheat. 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 2308.

   So the pretence is the representation, as the actors wore the prætexta to represent the people they were playing.

   Well that’s my guess anyway. 🙂

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4. 2005/02/20

   Mike Smith

   re: in the spirit of ‘disgruntled’

   Alec, I don’t know if one can act under true pretences, but I thought you might be amused by this short story I found on the web. It uses the positive form of many phrases we normally use only in the negative. Sadly, “true pretences” is not one of them. http http://www.lifestorywriting.com/positive.htm

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