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Idiom: 'from pillar to post'



 
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ESL Forum | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
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Idiom: 'from pillar to post' Thu Nov 02, 2006 17:04 pm  Idiom: 'from pillar to post'		  
Hi

Online dictionaries give the meaning of the idiom as:

Quote:
Adv.1.from pillar to post - from one place or situation to another;
"we were driven from pillar to post"
hither and thither

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/from+pillar+to+post
http://dict.die.net/from%20pillar%20to%20post/
...

But my English-Russian dictionary also gave as an acceptable equivalents, with quite differ (second) meaning:
'out of the frying pan into the fire' , from bad to worse, and the like.

I’ve found just a few universal dictionaries that add this meaning ('from one disaster to another').

If it was dogs driven from pillar to post there'd be an uproar. - the first meaning, clearly.

People have just had enough being thrown from pillar to post. – probably, the second.

Policemen of twenty to twenty-five years' service were harassed from pillar to post in the hunt for improved returns of charges and summonses – ?
Which one would you suppose here?
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Idiom: 'from pillar to post' Thu Nov 02, 2006 17:42 pm  Idiom: 'from pillar to post'		  
Hi Tamara

I'd never heard the expression "from pillar to post" before... even though I see that it's got an entry in both the American Heritage Dictionary and Webster's . Shocked

Webster's gives this definition:
from one place or one predicament to another

Amy
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Idiom: 'from pillar to post' Thu Nov 02, 2006 20:43 pm  Idiom: 'from pillar to post'		  
from pillar to post

Meaning:
· If something is going from pillar to post, it is moving around in a meaningless way,
from one disaster to another.

Category:
· General
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/from+pillar+to+post.html

Quote:
Phrase pillar to post is c.1600, originally of tennis, exact meaning obscure.
Smile
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=from+pillar+to+post&searchmode=none

… Thanks, Amy.
Actually, I’ve now found what I was seeking.
I luckily happened to be not the unique person on the Internet, who asked the question. Smile

One (old) reason for my question was that in my first language the saying ‘from one disaster to another’ (из огня да в полымя) is quite popular Smile

Another one (more fresh Smile) – my today’s encounter with the phrase
‘His wife was described as a ‘pillar of the community’.
… Smile
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