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Manor born

elmingo

Senior Member
France, French
Hi,

I'd like to get some explanation regarding the phrase "manor born" in the following context.

This happens in Florida. A 50-year-old man tries to get his mother to sell her house and move to some sort of classy retirement home. He goes step by step, but she is reluctant.
Then he tells her:
"Will you at least agree to have a look at Manor Born?"
"Manor Born? Manor Born? You want to put me in a home?"

He didn't really mention a home so far. I wonder how "Manor Born" leads the lady to understand he's actually talking about a retirement home?

Thanks for your help
"Manor Born" is apparently a name the writer thinks we would associate humorously with an old-age home (like Sunset Acres etc.). It's also a pun, as there is an idiom "to the manner born." See:

to the manner born
The fact that he has a specific place in mind is very suggestive. Houses generally don't have names and there's no reason to choose a specific apartment complex at this point.
He didn't really mention a home so far. I wonder how "Manor Born" leads the lady to understand he's actually talking about a retirement home?
I assumed from the quote of #1 that she had read about it, and had perhaps been bombarded with advertizing material from it.
I agree with the others. She clearly already knows that Manor Born is a retirement home. It is probably well-known to older people in that area.
All right, thanks to you all. I'll figure out a way to render that in French 👁 Wink ;)
She as a character knows what it is because she lives in that area. The author lets us as readers know what it is by context and the name.
I've been through this discussion in the past. The "correct" quote is "To the manner born". I just went online to find some documentation of that:

manner, to the manner born, to the manor born - Search for entries starting with T - Writing Tips - TERMIUM Plus® - Translation Bureau


The correct expression is to the manner born and not to the manor born. There is a tendency to use the mistaken or punning form manor, suggesting noble origins, rather than Shakespeare’s original word, manner.


  • It was Hamlet who said, "I am native here and to the manner born."
  • Helena entered the grand ballroom gracefully and confidently, as if to the manner born.


And more thoroughly discussed here: To the manner / manor born « The Word Detective

To begin at the beginning, the original phrase was definitely “to the manner born.” It was coined, as many of our best idioms were, by William Shakespeare, in this case in Hamlet, Act I, Scene iv, when Hamlet observes of the drunken atmosphere at Elsinore, “But to my mind, though I am native here / And to the manner born, it is a custom / More honour’d in the breach than the observance.”

But the bottom line is that “to the manor born” means something quite different from what Shakespeare meant by “to the manner born,” so complaints about the “manner/manor” spelling shift miss the point. As the eminently sane Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Usage notes, “If someone intends a meaning that is not Shakespeare’s, why use Shakespeare’s spelling?”
I've been through this discussion in the past. The "correct" quote is "To the manner born". I just went online to find some documentation of that:
There was a popular TV series (in the UK, at least) called ""
The title is a play on the phrase "to the manner born," from Shakespeare's Hamlet ("Though I am a native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance".)
As a result of its popularity, there are people that are unaware of the Shakespeare "manner" version and think it's wrong when they see it 👁 Smile :)
There was a popular TV series (in the UK, at least) called ""
As a result of its popularity, there are people that are unaware of the Shakespeare "manner" version and think it's wrong when they see it
As the OP's example comes from Florida - it seems reasonable to think that the speaker/writer had not heard of the UK TV series, and thus it is, for him/the home's owner, a new pun.
Authors sometimes talk directly to readers. So even if the author thinks an older woman character in Florida might not know the origin of that term that does not mean he necessarily thinks his reader won't. He has chosen that name for it's usefulness to the reader, regardless of what the character might or might now know.
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