The title of this story is very clever because it has multiple possible interpretations. Only one person is really being slaughtered. That is Patrick Maloney. He goes to the slaughter as meekly as a lamb because he doesn't suspect what is going to happen to him. The leg of lamb is used for the slaughter but it is not slaughtered--although it was slaughtered a long time ago and then frozen. Mary Maloney is not slaughtered, but she does the slaughtering. She has been as meek and docile as a lamb up to the point where she succumbs to a fit of rage and uses the frozen leg of lamb to slaughter Patrick. The detectives who come to the Maloney house might be compared to lambs going to the slaughter of Patrick. These detectives are all led by Mary as easily as is they were innocent lambs. Patrick is the only one actually slaughtered.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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