Re: 'BLOW UP' = 'EXPLOSION' was re: Push (3)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "The Egyptian Chronicles"
<the_egyptian_chronicles@...> wrote:

> Anatoly wrote:

> Why English 'blow' has the meaning 'explode' beside 'the motion
> of the air'?

> -----------------------------

> Strangely enough the answer is staring us in our face:

> It is a calque (or loan translation).

No, it isn't.

> Here is how to explain it:

> In Classical Latin, explosio / explodo meant clapping the hands
> loudly (as a sign of rejection) action de rejeter en battant des
> mains (bruyamment.)

> In English a "blow" was used in a similar fashion: a firm stroke,
> or a violent application of the fist or any instrument to an
> object. Hence the expression exchanging blows.

This noun, which first appears (as <blaw>) in the 15th century, in
Scotland and northern England, is quite possibly not related to the
verb at all.

> In French, "explosion": action d'éclater avec force, translated
> in English as: a violent blow up.

The English verbal expression <to blow up> is attested more than
a century earlier than the sense 'action d'éclater avec force' of
French <explosion>. English <a blow-up> is obviously from the
English verb.

Brian