Thermopyle wrote:
Jourdan M. Bickham wrote:
Thermopyle wrote:
[snip]
end of the earth. --she's not refering to the planet by name,
here, but the planet in general. A bit of a distinction...
Wrong again. "ends of the Earth" If the Earth is flat (as they
used to believe) then it would have more than one end...like a piece
of paper.
Er... no. That wasn't what I was referring to at all. I missed the
end/ends thing. I was talking about the difference between earth and
Earth. Earth refers to the planet by name, earth refers to, according
to dictionary.com, 'the land surface of the world'. 'earth' fits
better, and I believe it's what is used in this particular saying, not
Earth.
I could be wrong, of course... but the saying, with the word 'earth'
rather than 'Earth', is also then usable on say, Mars, or Uranus, or
whatever planet they happen to be on, without having to change it to
'I will chase you to the ends of Mars!' or 'Neptune!' or whatever the
planet they are on happens to be.
Surely anyone living on any planet other than Earth would as a matter of
course know that their world is round, and would never use such a silly,
archaic expression originating when folks thought that the Earth was the
center of the universe, and furthermore was flat. :)