“Rocks will melt in the sun …”
I was talking to a Scottish colleague this week and she quoted the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party Alex Salmond as insisting that “rocks will melt in the sun” before he introduces university tuition fees for Scottish students.
I had not heard this phraseology before and clearly it is so colourful that it did not originate with a politician. When I inquired, I was advised that it comes from a poem by Robert Burns.
Checking this out later, I find that the poem is “A Red, Red Rose” and you can read the full text here.
I suppose that the most common equivalent phrase to the assertion that “rocks will melt in the sun” before something unexpected happens would be “Hell will freeze over” before something occurs. Can you think of similar expressions?
April 7th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
My high school teacher required me to memorize that poem for Valentine’s Day, so I knew the phrase, but I didn’t realize it was a sort of saying. That makes me like it better—Burns was not just using colorful poetic language but was also using a common local phrase.
April 7th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
It’s the other way round, Dana.
Burns invented the phrase for his poem, but it has obviously now become a saying local to Scotland where the allusion will be understood.
Of course, Shakespeare has given the whole English-speaking world no end of phrases and sayings.
April 9th, 2011 at 12:50 am
Ah, well that makes more sense, and is even more interesting.