[Ads-l] Family of sayings: The lay-offs / firings / floggings/ beatings will continue until morale improves

[Wilson Gray]

> Mais dans ce pays-ci* il est bon de tuer de tems en tems un Amiral pour
> encourager les autres.*

> But in this country *it is good to kill an Admiral from time to time to
> encourage the others.*

Somehow, this is reminiscent of the Roman military custom of _decimatio_,
the American military custom of punishing an entire platoon for a failure
by one of its members, and the former Southern custom of whipping the
laggards, if they didn't keep up with the leaders, and whipping the
leaders, if they allowed the laggards to keep up with them.

These tactics bring out the best in one's underlings.

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 9:47 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:

> With regard to this excerpt from Garson's QI article
> <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/15/morale/>:
>
> A thematic precursor appeared in Voltaire’s famous novella “Candide” in
> 1759. The witty philosopher was aware of the unfortunate death of English
> Admiral John Byng who was court-martialed and executed in 1757. Many
> observers considered Byng’s punishment unjust, and Voltaire constructed a
> mocking remark about the event which was spoken by Candide’s companion when
> the fictional duo visited England. Here is the original French statement
> followed by a translation into English. Boldface added to excepts by *QI*:
> 1
> <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/15/morale/#note-438125-1>
>
> Mais dans ce pays-ci* il est bon de tuer de tems en tems un Amiral pour
> encourager les autres.*
>
> But in this country *it is good to kill an Admiral from time to time to
> encourage the others.*
>
> Though I can't provide any sources or quotations, I've seen the French
> clause "*pour encourager les autres*" used in English text a number of
> times.
>
> Mark Mandel
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 9:38 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Way back in December 2009 I posted a message to this mailing list
> > about the topic specified in the subject line.
> >
> >
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-December/094631.html
> >
> > Jonathan Lighter helpfully responded to my message with a pointer to a
> > thematically germane remark written by Voltaire in his novella
> > "Candide". Barry Popik tackled this topic in 2012. After a brief
> > decade delay, I've posted an article to the Quote Investigator
> > website.
> >
> > https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/15/morale/
> >
> > [Begin acknowledgement]
> > QI performed a preliminary exploration of this topic back in December
> > 2009. At that time, QI shared the 1966 citation with a mailing list.
> > Professor Jonathan Lighter told QI about the germane Voltaire
> > citation. Other mailing list discussants provided helpful feedback
> > including: Wilson Gray, Seán Fitzpatrick, and Bill Palmer. In 2012
> > fellow researcher Barry Popik published a beneficial webpage on the
> > topic. Thanks to the volunteer editors of Wikiquote who created a
> > pertinent webpage that was later deleted. Additional thanks to the
> > participants at the websites Metafilter, Quora, English.Stackexchange,
> > Wikiquote, and Reddit. Great thanks to Paul Rauber whose 2020 inquiry
> > led QI to continue this exploration and share the results on the QI
> > website.
> > [End acknowledgement]
> >
> > Feedback welcome
> > Garson O'Toole
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org