The pale Usher - threadbare in cost, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality - from the Etymology introduction in Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851 (from my California edition, Arion Press, 1979, a replica of the original edition)
When we hear words and we know the phrase, but the meaning of the words have redefined, we need to think of the pale Usher.
