Graffito: "To Be Is To Do" "To Do Is To Be" "Do Be Do Be Do"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Sep 18 14:36:53 UTC 2013


On Sep 18, 2013, at 8:51 AM, W Brewer wrote:

> DG:  <<Holmes does say "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the movies, even
> though it is not in the books.>>
> WB:  Also repeated endlessly in the myriad Old Time Radio broadcasts.
> "You must remember this," a quote is just a quote  (from Wikiquotes):
> <<L'étymologie est une science où les voyelles ne font rien et les
> consonnes fort peu de chose. (Etymology is a science in which vowels
> signify nothing at all, and consonants very little.)
> Quote attributed by Max Müller (1823–1900), Lectures on the Science of
> Language (2003), Kessinger Publishing, p. 238.>>
> According to my teacher Yakov Malkiel, the quote cannot be found anywhere
> in the works of Voltaire. (But, as I pointed out, it sounds like something
> he could well have said. Doesn't count, does it?)

…et d'ailleurs, s'il n'existait pas il faudrait l'inventer.

LH

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