What a lot of meanings for three little letters:
Die.
“Die, you swine!” cried the swashbuckling heroes of Victorian and Edwardian novels, whose heroines never languished with die-away airs. Modern heroes, of course, Die Hard (several times) or Die Another Day in glorious colour, with a wistful smile and a wry joke. Politicians are called die-hards if they’re very conservative, obstinate types – absolutely not the sort to Die Hard under any circumstances. ‘Twould be good if they’d just die off, like the dinosaurs they resemble – who went so far as to die out (though that was probably the result of a meteor strike, not personal choice).
One thing you don’t want your plants to do is to die back, little by little, as Ash trees are currently doing in various parts of the country due to Chalaria Die-Back disease – like Dutch Elm disease, it’s potentially able to cause total devastation to the British landscape over the next couple of decades if no cure is found. A lot of plants die down, however, without anyone getting upset: they shoot, flower, set seed and die down until next year in the unending cycle of Nature – and then some poor soul has to tidy up the herbaceous border to stop them looking hideous for months on end.
Scandals, too, will eventually die down. Sounds, on the other hand (unlike heroines) can die away – indeed, they’re expected to. They do it faster or more slowly, depending on what’s making the sound (the primary or secondary vibrator) and the amount of breath a wind-instrument player or singer can produce. And echoes – echoes – choes – oes – o…
Many a stand-up comic has “died the death” on stage, probably being given the advice “You should be on the stage – there’s one leaving in half an hour” (which doesn’t really help) instead of “never say die; try again next week with some decent jokes”. They can be a catty lot, actors, though sometimes the costumes are to die for – as long as you don’t look too closely.
Between scenes you’ll sometimes find them gambling with a die or two (dies or dice, it’s up to you) of the spotty variety. The other sort, for impressing coins and the like, are best kept securely at the Mint in the hands of someone as straight as a die. Dies can, of course, be somewhat more complex than that.Image may be NSFW.
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They can be made with a die-sink held in a die-stock, or possibly die-cast in a mould (and quite unchangeable thereafter) and – alea jacta est – the die is cast and there’s no turning back.
Then there are all the expressions that use the Latin dies, day – Dies Irae, dies non (a non-day, when judges don’t sit) dies profesti or dies fasti (when they do), and dies faustus – definitely not to be confused: it means lucky day. I don’t know who gave him the name (Marlowe?), but it seems a little unkind to call the man who sold his soul to Mephistopheles “Dr. Lucky”! It was something of a dies infaustus, I would have said, when the two of them met …
Any more dies (not dyes)? Let me know below!
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