Clam

March 24th, 2008 by admin

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Posted in columns, March 2008 | 4 comments

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4 comments on this post.

  1. Joan Jett:

    March 31st, 2008 at 10:09 am

    While not strictly related to the subject at hand, I am reminded of the best variant of “happy as a clam” that I have heard. It is from an episode of the old Fox Network sitcom “Married With Children”. To expain just how badly things were going for him, one of the characters says that he is “happy as a duck in orange sauce”. I’ve been using it for 20 years.

  2. Philippe Chantreau:

    December 1st, 2011 at 5:48 am

    The explanation for the msical sense is plausible, but the extrapolation to “clamor” is not. Clamor comes the French word clameur which is itself descended from the latin clamorem, a yell, scream or cry for alarm.

  3. karl:

    May 28th, 2013 at 6:53 pm

    A bag of clams, purchased at the store, makes a horrible noise.

  4. Bill:

    September 18th, 2016 at 6:07 pm

    A bit late joining this discussion, perhaps.The root of clamour is certainly Latin, as Philippe says, but the root word is not clamorem, but the verb clamo, which means ‘I shout’. There is also the Latin noun, clamor, meaning ‘shouting, uproar'; a cry of alarm may be one meaning, but it need not be more than just a loud vocal expression.

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