Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana

[Douglas G. Wilson]

A footnote, peripheral and maybe redundant.

Of course I'm familiar with the, uh, aphorism "Time flies", but I don't
recall encountering "Time flies like an arrow" myself except in the
automated-translation challenge along with the "fruit flies" part.

Apparently this is originally a conventional Chinese, uh, 'proverb', which
has a longer form which I think is literally translated something like
"Time is like an arrow, days and months are like a shuttle." "Flies [by,
really fast]" is only implied (it's what an arrow does). Here is one of
thousands of examples on the Web:

http://www.riccibase.com/docfile/lin-la03.htm

(the line beginning with "kwang").

This is the Chinese equivalent of the English "Time flies" according to
several Chinese-language Web pages devoted to "English proverbs".

I find "Time flies like an arrow, days and months like a weaver's shuttle"
from Feb. 1855 ("Home Magazine" 5(2):138, under "Chinese Proverbs") at
ProQuest.

I don't know whether there was [also] a non-Chinese (e.g., Latin or
native-English) source with the "arrow" figure.

-- Doug Wilson


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