Talk:devil's own

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Latest comment: 16 years ago by Visviva in topic Move?
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.


devil's own[edit]

Is this idiomatic? --Connel MacKenzie 22:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Own is not normally a noun/pronoun, and most cases where used as such can also be interpreted as an ellipsis. This phrase is semantically awkward when it doesn't modify anything. "They are the devil's own." The devil's own what? DAVilla 01:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
It seems to me that the "Devil's own" by itself means people allied with the Devil, such as witches, lawyers etc. "The devil's own X" means an extremely "devilish" X.
The reason why our distressed young teacher found it the devil's own job to get the students to write was probably basically that they were not led to believe that written work was expected of them. [1] Kappa 23:40, 29 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Yes. Keep. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)Reply


Move?[edit]

Isn't this always in the form the devil's own? -- Visviva 17:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)Reply