Canary = quandary

Posted by ESC June 18, 2004In reply to 'long and short of it ' posted by ESC on June 18, 2004

I need help with a couple of things:

i)the meaning of 'the short and the long of it'
ii) the meaning of 'canary'/'canaries'

this is the source:

1) MISTRESS QUICKLY (to Falstaff)

Marry, this is the short and the long of it;
You have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis
wonderful. The best courtier of them all,
when thecourt lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary.

W. Shakespeare
(Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, scene 2)

thanks!

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT -- "In sum; the heart of the matter. If you have told it 'long' and told it 'short,' you have surely told it all. Sometimes it was reversed: 'the short and the long of it.' Robert Manning of Brunne wrote in his 'Langtoft's Chronicle' " 'To say longly or schorte, alle (that) arms bare.'" From The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).

Canaries I'm still looking for.

Looks like Meaning No. 3:

CANARY : a wine brought from the Canary Islands.

CANARY : lively Spanish dance.

CANARY : mistaken for "quandary" by Mrs. Quickly in Wiv. 2.2.61.