From apple to orange, from clime to clime, to right and left...

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wholegrain

#530287 Fri, 20 Jun 08 07:43 PM

"Though her voyage of twelve hundred miles extends from apple to orange, from clime to clime, yet, like any small ferry-boat, to right and left, at every landing, the huge ship still receives additional passengers in exchange for those that disembark; so that, though always full of strangers, she continually, in some degree, adds to, or replaces them with strangers still more strange; like Rio Janeiro fountain, fed from the Cocovarde mountains, which is ever overflowing with strange waters, but never with the same strange particles in every part."

I don't understand what "from apple to orange" exactly stands for. Does he mean from a city to another city?

Also is "from clime to clime", a sort of metonymy that is supposed to mean "from location to another"?

I don't understand why it is "to right and left" as opposed to "from right and left"? Wouldn't it make more sense to say from right and left the... ship... receives additional passengers?

wholegrain

Joined on Thu, Jun 19 2008

Full Member (313)

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Mr Wordy

#530305 Fri, 20 Jun 08 08:23 PM

I'd guess that "from apple to orange" means "from places where apples are grown (i.e., from a northern hemisphere perspective, more northerly latitudes) to places where oranges are grown (i.e. more southerly latitudes)", emphasising the extent of the voyage.

"From clime to clime" means "from a region with one type of climate to a region with another", which fits in with the apple/orange idea.

"To right and left" doesn't seem particularly notable or surprising to me. "From" would explicitly mean that the passengers embarked from each side, while "to" just suggests that the ship is darting perhaps from one side of a river to the other, or from one little island to another, berthing on whichever side is appropriate.

Mr Wordy

Joined on Tue, May 27 2008

Regular Member (960)

Native British English speaker

wholegrain

#530335 Fri, 20 Jun 08 10:04 PM

So is "to right and left" an elliptical form of "as the ship darts to right and left" or anything of the sort?

wholegrain

Mr Wordy

#530351 Fri, 20 Jun 08 11:34 PM

Not really, in my view ... well, only in the uninteresting sense that it would be possible to write the sentence more elaborately and in more words -- which is true of virtually any sentence. I don't get any particular impression that words have been omitted. (It's true that "to right and left" could be written as "to the right and left", but in this context the omission of "the" seems natural enough to me.)

Mr Wordy