Vocaboly.com

[Richard Maurer]

"Face the music" is found in the 1841 play _London Assurance_,
by Dion Boucicault and maybe others:
There was no time to decide on anything, for Max
was already approaching with Sir Harcourt,
and it was necessary to face the music.


<http://www.umsl.edu/~virtualstl/phase2/1850/events/resources/
documents/LondonAssurance.html>

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Names that might be of interest
(Mr) Cool
Lady Gay Spanker

He walked with a swagger to Sir Harcourt, and said,&mdash

[Richard Maurer]

Some thoughts about "face the music" after
a period of investigation.
Perhaps the beginning meaning is lost in time.
It seems to be a ready made phrase that is instantly
and appropriately attached to new circumstances.

Most recently, in the 1900s, after the phrase meant
"face the consequences", people considered it clever
to say "face the music and dance", which might have
been recycling an old meaning.

In the early 1800s there were musical bands in churches,
so the phrase "face the music" was commonly known.
Fun could be had by applying an old phrase
to a new situation.

And of course there were old military uses, where
soldiers would follow the music of drums, bagpipes,
and shawms into battle. (But the phrase is not
known to be attached to this.)

As for the meaning "face the enemy in battle",
there are many close hits
face the foe
face the enemy
face the din
face the tumult
face the noise.

There is one interesting book that came out in 1834. [1]
But it came out in Russian, and complete English
translations were not available until decades later.

Andrii gave himself up wholly to
the enchanting music of blades and bullets.
He knew not what it was to consider, or calculate,
or to measure his own as against the enemy's strength.
He gazed on battle with mad delight and intoxication:
he found something festal in the moments when a man's
brain burns, when all things wave and flutter
before his eyes, when heads are stricken off,
horses fall to the earth with a sound of thunder,
and he rides on like a drunken man, amid the
whistling of bullets and the flashing of swords,
dealing blows to all, and heeding not
those aimed at himself.


It was about that time that bullets started to
whistle and make music. One rifle/bullet combo
might give a B flat, while another a G. Minnie balls
and rifles in the same battle. There was an article
written in the 1850s about the various pitches of
the bullets. That made it easy for the phrase
to take on the meaning "face the enemy in battle".

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Ben Zimmer]

Richard Maurer wrote:

[Richard Maurer]

Richard Maurer wrote:
"Face the music" is found in the 1841 play
_London Assurance_, by Dion Boucicault
and maybe others:



Ben Zimmer wrote:
That text isn't actually from the 1841 play,
but rather from a playbill accompanying a performance
of the play in St. Louis. Based on other materials
on the site, it appears that the performance was in 1852:



OK, thanks for getting that straight.

'Playbill' is new to me -- I see that it can be
either a program or a poster. There was much dialog
in this example. I wonder whether it was a program for
the performance happening that night in the theater --
or the equivalent of today's movie trailers,
something to entice the audience to return for a
coming attraction.

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Richard Maurer]

One more "face the music" related item.

There is an 1855 Putnam's magazine article entitled
"Australiana -- The Campbell Town election"
that included the line:
He faced the tumult, or, as he said himself,
"he faced the music," and did his best to get
the better of it.

I can't see the author's name, but had the idea
that it might be a reprint of an earlier article.
Maybe it rings a bell for someone in the general area.

The phrase does have an Australian cadence to it.

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Donna Richoux]

Richard Maurer <rcpb1_maurer@yahoo.com> wrote: