Hey, I had another thought on this whole business.
People who don’t get out much can suffer from a limited imagination, and consequently a creative understanding of metaphor is quite beyond them. The only use of colonial that they know of involves tri-corner hats, which they don’t think is sexy at all. It reminds them of Patrick Henry, which reminds them of political liberty, which reminds them of Tea Parties, and then they have to lie down for a little while.
And when they try to picture a flock of goats streaming down Mt. Gilead, the whole thing shuts down. On top of that, they cannot imagine life outside their very own faith communities, as they like to call them. If you tell them that a wife in a KJV-only church might say, “How about some due benevolence, baby?” they rush out to make one of those “said no one ever” cards.
Ah, but not everybody uses language in the same way. One time, when Chicago was still “out west,” a nouveau riche lady from Chicago took a trip to Boston, and managed to get invited to a party at one of the swankest mansions there. Her hostess, one of the Brahmin class, looked through her lorgnette, sniffed ever so slightly, and said, “Here in Boston we think breeding is everything.” The Chicago lady was caught off guard, but recovered quickly. “Well, out in Chicago,” she said, “we think it is a lot of fun. But we don’t think it is everything.”