Nowadays people are probably not used to the way the expression was phrased. It can be parsed to discern the meaning.
> "Few and evil were their days" “Few were their days“ “Evil were their days” It reminds me of a figure of speech that my Latin teacher was fond of, but I’ve forgotten the name for it. He might have said “few were their days and evil”. > On 11 Jul 2020, at 14:43, Dale H. Cook <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 7/11/2020 2:15 AM, Bob wrote: > >> It doesn’t mean that they themselves were evil, but that they suffered in >> their short lives. > > I concur. The meaning of words and their usage have changed over time. I am > forever encountering inexperienced genealogists who misinterpret old > gravestones and old records because they read them as if they were written > today instead of understanding them as the writers intended. The classic > example concerns "senior" and "junior". In colonial New England those terms > had nothing to do with relationship. > -- > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
