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Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 08:26:34 -0500
From: Elizabeth Vandiver <ev23@umail.umd.edu>
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Subject: Re: Prometheus Unloosed
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I *have* heard similar phrases before, though I can't cite examples. I wonder
if there are two things at work--a confusion with "Gargantuan" and, perhaps,
a misunderstanding of usages such as Othello's "I know not where is that
Promethean heat/ That can thy light relume."  If one did not know the story
of Prometheus, it would be very easy to think that  "Promethean" there
simply  meant  very, very large.

EV

GMOGRADY48 wrote:

> In a rather thoughtful column in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle a
> sportswriter uses the phrase "a mistake of Promethean proportions" to
> describe Bud Selig's alleged plan to abolish the Minnesota Twins and
> Montreal Expos.
>
> Has anyone else ever heard Prometheus used in this phrase?  Maybe he was
> just a conveniently alliterative Titan.
>
> Gene O'Grady

.