Murphy's Law--a correction

[Fred Shapiro]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Gerald Cohen wrote:

> treating this topic I should make an embarrassing mistake.  In my
> last message on "Murphy's Law" I mentioned that the earliest known
> attestation (1955) was noticed by Barry Popik. The correct
> attribution is the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs_; this is
> clearly given right before the 1955 attestation in the Feb. 1999
> article which Popik and I wrote, and I will not even try to explain
> how the error crept into my earlier e-mail.

Let me again pay tribute to Adriana Orr, the OED's long-time Washington
researcher.  I had lunch with her the day she discovered the 1955
"Murphy's Law" citation, and I remember how pleased she was with her
discovery.  No one has yet been able to improve upon this.

I salute Barry Popik for his valiant attempts to trace the origins of
"Murphy's Law" through primary research.  Others who are attempting to
solve the puzzle through armchair speculation should realize that this is
quite fruitless.  "Etymology unknown" is what scholars say in the absence
of actual evidence.

Here is my own modest contribution:  A 1957 book, _Psychological Tests and
Personnel Decisions_ by L. T. Cronbach and G. C. Gleser, refers to "if
anything can go wrong, it will."  (I am getting this from a 1958 review of
the book, and have not examined the Cronbach & Gleser book itself.)  This
citation, not in an aviation context, suggests either that the proverb
originated in more general usage or that it spread quickly from an
aviation origin to other realms.

Fred Shapiro


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