[Ads-l] "One man's terrorist..."

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Tue Aug 4 02:10:25 UTC 2015


The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs has "One man's terrorist is another man's heroic freedom fighter" from 1970 and "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" from 1971.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2015 9:11 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "One man's terrorist..."

Thanks, guys.  My attribution to Seymour was based on a scribbled note from
several years back.

JL

On Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 10:49 PM, Joel Berson <berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "One man's terrorist..."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I wonder if one can find something similar in the history of provincial
> Mas=
> sachusetts.=C2=A0 The British thought the Americans were terrorists; the
> co=
> lonials thought they were revolutionaries.
>
> Joel
>
>       From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=20
>  Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2015 7:56 PM
>  Subject: [ADS-L] "One man's terrorist..."
>   =20
> The modern cliche' that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom
> fighter" seems first to have been formulated in so many words by
> Gerald=C2=A0 Seymour,
> in his IRA thriller *Harry's Game* (1975).
>
> But Seymour may have been inspired by Yasser Arafat's statement to the UN
> General Assembly on Nov, 13, 1974:
>
> "The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the
> reason for which each fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights
> for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers
> and the colonialists cannot possibly be called terrorist...."
>
> JL
>
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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