The word "curb" has a perfectly clear physical meaning, especially when it is used as a noun. "I just ran over the curb" means "I just ran over the strip of raised asphalt on the edge of the road and the limit of my yard." The experience likely gave the speaker of that sentence an unpleasant bumping sensation, increased maintenance cost for his car and at least one tire, and should deter him from repeating whatever turn or inattention caused the run-in. That, at least, is a key reason why the curb is there. Of course "curb" can also be used less physically. Perhaps one might say metaphorically, but I'm not sure "metaphor" is really the right word. "Republicans elected to Congress in 1946 were devoted to placing new curbs on the power of labor unions." There is also the verb use, "please curb your enthusiasm for this diner -- the food here is going to kill you." A recent television show was built around that...
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There doesn't seem to be any adjective attached to the reign of Queen Anne, the final Stuart monarch. Kings named Edward get the adjective "Edwardian" attached to their reign. Queens named Victoria or Elizabeth get Victorian or Elizabethan. And so forth. But nothing is Annean. I guess this is because the phrase "Queen Anne" is so short. One doesn't have to refer to an Annean chair when one can simply say a "Queen Anne" chair without losing a beat. Okay, this isn't going anywhere....
In English we often use the idiom, "it is raining." We don't think much about the use of a pronoun without antecedent here. Nobody ever asks, " what is raining?" I raised this question recently on a message board and got three answers, dashed off together in an irritated fashion, as if to shoo me away: the sky, or the world, or nature is raining. Those are three very different answers, and the first of them refers to a mere visual phenomenon, the illusion of a blue dome above an observer's head that we call the "sky". Try out the phrase "the sky is raining." Does that trip off the tongue? There are profundities in the neighborhood of this simple seeming idiom. "It is raining, but what is 'it'?" could serve as a zen koan. After writing the above, I discovered that I explored the idiom in question in a post on this blog in June 2012. Ah well, repeating oneself at three-year intervals doesn't sound too ba...
The original French lyrics were as follows: Minuit, chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle, Où l'Homme Dieu descendit jusqu'à nous Pour effacer la tache originelle Et de Son Père arrêter le courroux. Le monde entier tressaille d'espérance En cette nuit qui lui donne un Sauveur. Peuple à genoux, attends ta délivrance. Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur, Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur! De notre foi que la lumière ardente Nous guide tous au berceau de l'Enfant, Comme autrefois une étoile brillante Y conduisit les chefs de l'Orient. Le Roi des rois naît dans une humble crèche: Puissants du jour, fiers de votre grandeur, A votre orgueil, c'est de là que Dieu prêche. Courbez vos fronts devant le Rédempteur. Courbez vos fronts devant le Rédempteur. Le Rédempteur a brisé toute entrave: La terre est libre, et le ciel est ouvert. Il voit un frère où n'était qu'un esclave, L'amour unit ceux qu'enchaînait le fer. Qui lui dira notre reconnaissa...
That headline may get me some clicks. A facebook friend recently shared these words of wisdom about our language, and I can't do better today than to quote them: The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore. The words are those of Stephen Fry, in THE ODE LESS TRAVELLED (2005).