The Doubles.

September 18, 2024 by 30 Comments

I may have mentioned that my wife and I are rereading Barchester Towers, and in Ch. XXXIV (“Oxford—The Master and Tutor of Lazarus”) there occurs this passage:

“But perhaps Mr. Slope may have no objection to see his patron on a rock,” said the suspicious tutor.

“What could he get by that?” asked Mr. Arabin.

“It is impossible to see the doubles of such a man,” said Mr. Staple.

Does anyone have any idea what Trollope means by “the doubles”?

Comments

  1. mollymooly says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:04 pm

    NED sv “Double” sb.

    6. A sharp turn in running, as of a hunted hare; also, of a river ; fig. an evasive turn or shift in action, argument, etc. To give (one) the double : to give the slip, evade by stratagem.

  2. Ransom says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:04 pm

    I have a guess:

    From the top of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint :

    A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842.

    To “see the doubles” could mean “to consult the blueprints”.

  3. Ransom says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:06 pm

    Hmm, I think I like molly’s explanation just as well as my own.

  4. J.W. Brewer says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:13 pm

    What Trollope means? Shurely “What Mr. Staple means.” Or perhaps “What Trollope means Mr. Staple to mean.”

  5. Stu Clayton says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:25 pm

    mollymooly seems to have it right.

    #
    A horse, that has been accustomed to the field, becomes acquainted with the proper height, which he can leap, and will never attempt what exceeds his force and ability. An old greyhound will trust the more fatiguing part of the chace to the younger, and will place himself so as to meet the hare in her doubles; nor are the conjectures, which he forms on this occasion, founded in any thing but his observation and experience.
    #
    [Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]

    This behavior of hares is called Hakenschlagen in a well-known European language. I have used the word metaphorically (as is usual here when you’re not a harrier of hares) from time to time, without knowing it is/was called “doubling” in English. Never encountered “doubling” in this sense.

    I’ve read Barchester Towers loads of times, but must have glid over that passage each time.

  6. rozele says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:47 pm

    “see the doubles” feels to me like it has to be a play on “see [him] on a rock”, and i can’t make that work with any of these idioms/definitions. but i’ve got no explanation to offer myself.

    i think the formal model i have in mind (that trollope would’ve known, but may or may not have been thinking of) is from Romeo & Juliet:

    Mercutio: […] You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
    Romeo: Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
    Mercutio: The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

  7. Trond Engen says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:47 pm

    Norw. (gjøre) kuvending “(make a) cowturn” for whatever reason. Cows I have known have not been quick turners.

    Edit: It’s from sailor’s jargon, meaning “turn the ship with the wind”, and the sailors may not have had any specimens at hand for comparison.

  8. Stu Clayton says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:54 pm

    So is a “cowturn” a slow U-turn ? As performed by cows, elephants and elderly drivers – to name but these ?

  9. Trond Engen says
    September 18, 2024 at 6:59 pm

    I know it only in the metaphorical sense “fig. an evasive turn or shift in action, argument, etc. “, e.g. a politician, an administrative body or a business changing their policy on a highly debated issue after realizing the pervasiveness of popular discontent.

  10. Jerry Friedman says
    September 18, 2024 at 7:01 pm

    In American English, “objection to [infinitive]” has always been very rare. All six hits at COHA seem to be mis-tagged, and four are OCR errors, e.g, “objection to tfaem”. I don’t know of any free-access corpus for British English that goes back that far and can tell infinitives from participles. Did British people really say “no objection to see” back then?

  11. languagehat says
    September 18, 2024 at 7:43 pm

    Ah, mollymooly must be right, especially since Trollope was besotted with hunting (my wife and I have learned to just skip those scenes, which go on forever).

  12. AG says
    September 18, 2024 at 7:47 pm

    Somehow this reminded me of translations of the first line of The Odyssey and the many twists and turns people tie themselves into trying to get “polytropos” just right.

  13. Brett says
    September 18, 2024 at 9:01 pm

    @AG: Previous discussion of that translation issue, from 2017.

  14. Ryan says
    September 18, 2024 at 11:12 pm

    > So is a “cowturn” a slow U-turn ?

    Boustrophedon. Seems like it’s just a u-turn — doubling back. I’m making a guess that one sometimes plows with females.

  15. languagehat says
    September 19, 2024 at 5:54 am

    Cows are not always slow.

  16. Keith Ivey says
    September 19, 2024 at 8:38 am

    Do the people who rhyme “nous” with “house” also use that diphthong in the first syllable of “boustrophedon”?

  17. J.W. Brewer says
    September 19, 2024 at 11:17 am

    The paragraph earlier in the chapter that introduces the reader to Mr. Staple is rather lovely:

    “Tom Staple was a hale, strong man of about forty-five, short in stature, swarthy in face, with strong, sturdy black hair and crisp black beard of which very little was allowed to show itself in shape of whiskers. He always wore a white neckcloth, clean indeed, but not tied with that scrupulous care which now distinguishes some of our younger clergy. He was, of course, always clothed in a seemly suit of solemn black. Mr. Staple was a decent cleanly liver, not over-addicted to any sensuality; but nevertheless a somewhat warmish hue was beginning to adorn his nose, the peculiar effect, as his friends averred, of a certain pipe of port introduced into the cellars of Lazarus the very same year in which the tutor entered it as a freshman. There was also, perhaps, a little redolence of port wine, as it were the slightest possible twang, in Mr. Staple’s voice.”

  18. cuchuflete says
    September 19, 2024 at 11:18 am

    So is a “cowturn” a slow U-turn ?

    So, therefore, a silent rotation is taciturn.

  19. Stephen Goranson says
    September 19, 2024 at 11:44 am

    An 1853 letter by Earl Richard Grenville-Temple may be compared:
    “Mr. Bernard is without doubt a sensible man, but he has a vast deal of low cunning, which he has played off upon all degrees of people to his own disgrace. His doubles and turnings have been so many, that he has altogether lost his road, and brought himself into great contempt .

  20. Stu Clayton says
    September 19, 2024 at 1:35 pm

    with some figures suggesting cows kill more people than dogs

    Cows kill more people than cows kill dogs ? Dogs kill more people than cows kill people ?

    I’m guessing that whatever is meant, the “figures” say that it is the case. Figures don’t suggest any more than they opine. They may be misleading and unrepresentative, but that doesn’t make them into suggestions.

  21. Stu Clayton says
    September 19, 2024 at 1:44 pm

    a silent rotation is taciturn.

    I love it.

    A model in a kitschy outfit does a tackyturn down the catwalk and back.

  22. J.W. Brewer says
    September 19, 2024 at 1:45 pm

    Stu is grumbling about an instance of what wiktionary has as its sense 2 of the verb “suggest”: “(transitive) To cause one to suppose (something); to bring to one’s mind the idea (of something).” Figures may not literally suggest in sense 3 (“(transitive) To explicitly mention (something) as a possibility for consideration, often to recommend it.”), which is the sense of the verb that probably connects most cleanly with the noun “suggestion,” but they certainly can in sense 2.

  23. David Eddyshaw says
    September 19, 2024 at 1:46 pm

    Somebody was just telling me today that cows kill more people in the UK than sharks do.

    “We’re gonna need a bigger tractor.”

  24. Stu Clayton says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:02 pm

    Stu is grumbling about an instance of what wiktionary has

    Dictionaries are not an issue here. For many years now on the electronic highway, people are no longer quoted as having said something, as in olden times, but as having “suggested” it. That’s to avoid libel charges, I have read. What annoys me about “figures suggesting” is that figures are not going to press charges against anyone, so you might as well say what they say and be done with it.

  25. Jerry Friedman says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:08 pm

    I’d say figures “suggest” when the sample is small, the sources aren’t guaranteed reliable, the calculation is based on plausible but not certain assumptions, and the like.

  26. Stu Clayton says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:11 pm

    I’d say that such figures are not worth publishing or talking about. They’re just window-dressing for “I have the impression that …” without any numbers.

    You can put lipstick on a hog and call it Monique, but it’s still a pig. (No offense to Miss Piggy, who looks great with it.)

    A hog in armour is still but a hog.

    Like putting a silver saddle on a jackass.

  27. Ryan says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:31 pm

    .>So, therefore, a silent rotation is taciturn.

    There are no quiet gulls, only taci-terns

  28. Stu Clayton says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:33 pm

    Tackyturns

  29. J.W. Brewer says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:33 pm

    Or the slightly different scenario from what Jerry Friedman mentioned where the figures “say” X, and X is kind of boring but is suggestive of related-yet-distinct proposition Y, which is more interesting but not directly demonstrated by the figures.

  30. Stu Clayton says
    September 19, 2024 at 2:46 pm

    The figures say what they say, whatever that is. If what they say is tenuous, drop it, sez I – boring or not.

    You would seem to prefer “These figures say X, but X is kind of boring so let’s move right along to a vaguely similar claim Y without any supporting figures”. I evaluate, you segue, he hasn’t a clue.

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