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The transcription of a lecture I'm listening to had "by in large." She probably said "by and large" but the transcription is wrong. It's wrong fairly often -- queues vs cues, for example. More puzzling when it gives us cecadic, which means nothing, as near as I can tell, for saccadic, which refers to the eye movements called saccades (which move our eyes in order to direct our foveas at whatever we are trying to see most clearly).
I'm very grateful to have the transcription, despite its flaws. I correct the errors I notice as I take notes........
My puzzlement with the transcription (trying to figure
out if the transcription is done by machines or people, using the
embedded errors as clues....) is a digression.
Back to what was supposed to be the point of this post.
Seeing "by in large" got me to wondering.... I was thinking it was "by AND large," but I wasn't sure. And I was positive I had no idea what the meaning was, originally.........
It turns out that "by and large" originates in nautical terminology..............
Interesting! (and -- I would never have guessed the original meaning!)
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2 comments:
Are you sure in wasn't an admonition to get big sizes or quantities, "buy in large"?
SFSF
lol..........
Yes, quite sure. :-)
I hadn't actually watched that part of the lecture when I was messing with the transcript. I'm not *positive*, now, having watched her mouth as she said it, but I'm pretty sure she said "by and large".
And I AM sure she meant "On the whole; generally speaking; all things considered." rather than "get lots of XXXX-sized objects."
lol.
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