Talk:gild the lily

Must the embellishment be un-necessary? The expression can surely be used merely to mean embellish. pauldanon

@pauldanon It seems to me that the point of the expression (and the original quotation that it derives from) is that the embellishment is unnecessary. Someone might use the expression to mean embellish, but it seems they would be missing the point of the expression if they did not mean that the embellishment was unnecessary. For example, gilding refined gold is an unnecessary embellishment because refined gold is already gilded, in a sense, so very little would be added to something that was already good. The implication seems to be that the effort is not only unnecessary but also wasteful, and potentially counter-productive. Similarly, painting a lily would be an unnecessary embellishment because the lily is already naturally and sufficiently decorated, in a sense, so these acts of embellishment are characteristically unnecessary or excessive, etc. and not merely positive embellishments. It seems to me that it would not be semantically appropriate to use the expression to describe the act of merely embellishing something, without the implication that it was somehow unnecessary or absurd. 81.109.84.66 23:28, 18 March 2021 (UTC)