What does that mean, anyway? “After my own heart?” I mean, I know it means “a kindred soul.” And I know it’s at least as old as the King James Version of the Bible. But “after my own heart?” like the heart’s a prototype or a mold or model, and the next person came “after”? Dunno.
Anyway, Cowtown Pattie just put a buncha yuccas and agaves in her garden somewhere in Texas. And one yucca that isn’t a yucca. It’s a hesperaloe. But it might as well be a yucca. Except not pointy.
Texas is, of course, the capital of agaves, as long as you ignore everything south of the Rio Grande, which is after all what the media would have us do. Agaves are to the Chihuahuan Desert what saguaros are to the Sonoran and Joshua trees are to the Mojave. Except that both saguaros and Joshuas have rather limited altitudinal ranges — there are depths below which they will not go, and heights too — and don’t tend to like valley soils whatever the altitude. Conversely agaves grow anywhere in the Chihuahuan Desert that isn’t encrusted with salt.
The Chihuahuan Desert can be found in extreme west Texas, which is redundant. It can also be found in the state of Chihuahua, which is part of Mexico, which is the actual center of agave (and yucca) diversity despite the field guides and the New York Times cutting off their coverage at the fence.
I need sleep. Does it show?
=v= I think “after one’s own heart” comes form the King James Bible, so it was probably all the rage in the 1600s. Maybe they had more vampires then, I dunno.
I think it’s “she’s a woman after my own heart” in the sense of “she’s a woman after my own french fries.” After as in ruthlessly out to get.
I think French is fried.
Samuel 13:14, KJV:
That kinda works against the “wants some hot lovin’” interpreation, don’tcha think?
The sun glares at the top of the sky. A tumbleweed blows across the dusty, empty street. Then, a single sound: a jingle of spurs. The two grim, whip-thin combatants approach each other, step by murderous step. Suddenly, quicker than lightning, one figure unholsters a gleaming engine of destruction.
THE OED.
and
The whip-thin combatant accidentally shoots herself in the head and expires, bleeding, in the center of the dusty street. Crows gather.
Mmmm crows.
Chris,
Yucca
“a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…”
We here in Cowtown have always called the plant you named as hesperaloe, a red yucca. But, my money would be on you ;-)
And what’s wrong with my name? (see quote above again)
I’m not sure I exactly agree with the OED-based interpretation, though the difference might be slight.
I think the speaker is saying that the match between himself and the woman in question is so perfect it is as if the woman were fashioned specifically to evoke his love. The “own” is an intensifier, a construction you can hear in Irish speakers today. “Please bring my friend another beer, and as for my own self, a whiskey would be fine.”