Prose

Il y a plus de vingt ans que je dis de la prose, sans que jʹen susse rien. I have known this these twenty years without being conscious of it. (Molière: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.)

“‘Really,ʹ exclaimed Lady Ambrose, brightening, ‘Il y a plus de vingt ans que je dis de la prose, sans que jʹen susse rien.ʹ And so it seems that I have known history without suspecting it, just as Mons. Jourdain talked prose.”—Mallock: The New Republic, bk. iii. chap. 2.

Father of Greek prose. Herodʹotos (B.C. 484–405).

Father of English prose. Wycliffe (1324–1384); and Roger Ascham (1515–1568).

Father of French prose. Villehardouin (pron. Veal-hard-whahʹn.) (1167–1213.)

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.