Thursday, August 02, 2007

'Caviare to the general'

'Caviare to the general' is a quotation of Shakespeare, which means 'not to the taste of the general public'. You can use the word general in two ways when it comes to Turkey...

I see more and more people saying that Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Gül might be a good president but he is not the taste of the Turkish people in general.
I agree with this. It would be a disaster for Turkey if both the President and Prime minister are from the same party. The President must be someone completely independent. All the changes Turkey currently went through, is maybe too quick, and hard to digest. And with Mr. Gül as president, the same tensions will occur as in April of this year.
And, there are external problems which have to be solved, with neighboring countries for example (I include the USA in this..))

2 comments:

qaminante said...

"Caviar to the general" means "not to the taste of the general public" in the sense of being refined or high-brow. Hamlet was talking in an élitist way about a play that "pleased not the million": he was expressing cultural snobbery, since he appreciated it but the general public didn't, i.e. it was effectively too good for them!
I don't know that this really fits with what you are trying to say, which would seem to be that Gul has little support in Turkey - from anyone. Or are you really saying that Gul appeals only to an intellectual/social/cultural élite?

Anonymous said...

We speak about the past.
Like Shakespeare was disappointed that his play was not accepted at that time, Gul his presidency will not be understood by the Turkish public in general..
Kindest