"what goes around, comes around" proverb

Imran Ghory imran at BITS.BRIS.AC.UK
Fri Jul 25 20:38:30 UTC 2003


On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> Does anyone (Fred, Barry?) have any info on this recent-ish proverb
> "What goes around, comes around"? The only discussion here seems to
> have been a posting Barry made on the headwords in a 2002 glossary
> of prison slang. How early is it?

An article in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 20, No. 2 has a quote
from Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo (1972) which uses the phrase,

(p. 218 MJ),

"Time is a pendulum," he declares. "Not a river. More akin to what goes
around comes around"

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran



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