the night is getting old

[Victor Steinbok]

This is more of a personal surprise than an observation about language.

I just heard "The night is getting old" in Bravo's Work of Art (from
Sucklord, of course, who was eliminated in today's episode), and it kind
of jolted me, as I was not expecting this expression. It's transparently
the opposite of the poetic, "the night is young". But, I must admit, I
thought, I've never seen or heard it before.

Yet, it get a better-than-modest 33K+ raw ghits, including 165 raw in GB
(only 20 actual hits in GB).

Among others, it can be found in The Lord of the Rings (Aragorn's
comment in the Fellowship of the Ring), in Henry Ward Beecher's Lectures
to Young Men (1844-5), Baynham's Elocutions (1883), etc. Beecher is
certainly a vector, as different editions of the Lectures account for
half the GB hits.

"The night is old" gets a lot more hits (3930 raw GB). This includes
Walter Scott's Anne of Geierstein or Maiden in the Mist (1829--
http://goo.gl/xGe7q ), with the snippet reprinted in late 19th century
editions of "Walter Scott's Poetry". This line of verse appears to be
the earliest available with this language (although another version
might have appeared earlier).

     VS-)

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