Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 10:56:11 -0400 From: Jesse T Sheidlower Subject: Re: sea change > > Can someone enlighten me about when the expression "sea change" came into our > language? It's a common buzzword in corporate writing...a sea change in > management, etc. It's an allusion to Shakespeare's 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." (I.ii) Here it means 'a change brought about by the sea', but it's now used to mean 'any major transformation'. Jesse Sheidlower