The phrase is a quotation from Shakespeare. It comes from Ariel’s wonderfully evocative song in The Tempest:
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
The Oxford English Dictionary finds the first allusive use in one of Ezra Pound’s poems from 1917. But examples can be found a little earlier than that, as in The Great White Wall by Julian Hawthorne, dated 1877: “Three centuries ago, according to my porter, a sea-change happened here which really deserves to be called strange”.
(quoted from the World Wide Words)
2006-07-02 09:19:00
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answer #1
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answered by Andrew W 3
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The expression is "sea change" and I've heard it used in 3 different ways: 1) a large change, 2) a fundamental change, 3) an abrupt change. The expression is usually used in reference to the policy or opinion of a large group of people, e.g. scientific opinion, public policy, governmental programmes. In some sense, the above 3 meanings are related, i.e. an abrupt change is apt to be a large one and the outward or observeable effects probably signal a similarly sized change in underpinning or fundamental thought on the matter.
2006-07-02 10:28:01
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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sea change = large difference, eg Carter to Reagan!!
2006-07-02 13:06:04
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answer #3
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answered by Conservative 5
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dhange c to d an you will have dodk
2006-07-02 10:08:48
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answer #4
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answered by itsa o 6
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nope
2006-07-02 09:17:55
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answer #5
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answered by Anonymous
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no idea ...
2006-07-02 09:21:25
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answer #6
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answered by Manis 4
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