GR translation: And when the mice run down...

[Bekah]

As of yesterday there are now 645 definitions for the word "run."    The post on "ran" reminded me.  

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136796448/has-run-run-amok-it-has-645-meanings-so-far


bek

On May 31, 2011, at 8:48 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:

> Might it be that the sentence requires a verb in the subjunctive mood.
> 
> who knows but what tonight the mice MIGHT have run down for good
> 
> Nope, ruins it.
> 
> P
> 
> On 5/31/2011 4:35 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>> It's idiomatic and also a reference to a nursery rhyme:
>> 
>> idiom:
>> "who knows but what" like Phillip Grayson said, essentially means "who
>> knows whether or not"
>> 
>> the nursery rhyme goes like this:
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory_Dickory_Dock)
>> hickory dickory dock
>> the mouse ran up the clock
>> the clock struck one   (the clock made whatever sound it makes upon the hour)
>> and down he come    (that is, the mouse)
>> hickory dickory dock
>> 
>> so, see, Roger and Jessica are riding out to get a dog for Pointsman's
>> sinister purposes.
>> The atmosphere is being set
>> -- they want to be cozy in bed but instead are riding out
>> -- Roger is hunched over like Dracula in his Burberry (a very English
>> looking coat)
>> --- Jessica wearing a wool coat and the melted snow on it is striking,
>> psychedelic, beautiful (like Jessica herself is to Roger)
>> -- it's late at night and therefore the clock of St Felix is "striking
>> one" (http://www.saintfelix.org.uk/History.html)
>> --- the theme of London filled with chiming cathedrals brings Orwell's
>> book _1984_ to mind
>> 
>> if the clock is striking one, then poetic license not only allows, but
>> insists upon, a mouse that has run up the clock and now will be
>> running down!
>> 
>> *BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE* --
>> 
>> a) if the mouse runs up and/or down the clock at a certain time, isn't
>> that another example of Pavlovian conditioning?
>> 
>> b) and, if the mice "run down for good" -- idiomatically, "run down
>> for good" means "run down for the last time - indicating a sort of
>> dramatic finality, the machine standing triumphant over the animal at
>> last
>> 
>> c) but, also idiomatically, "run down" means to "succumb to entropy"
>> as a battery when drained is said to have "run down", or a person when
>> tired is said to "have that run-down feeling" and so the mouse's
>> attempts, like those of the human characters, cost it time and life
>> and energy, and leave it in a greater state of disorganization than it
>> started at
>> 
>> --- so overloaded is this trope with foreboding that the overloading
>> itself is a source of humor! (at least, it makes me snicker, among all
>> the other reactions)
>> 
>