Fw: "Great minds think alike"

[Alan Baragona]

P.S.  Barlett's DOES have "good/great wits jump."  "Good wits jump; a word
to the wise is enough" is found in the early 18th-century translation of Don
Quixote by Peter Anthony Motteux.  "Great wits jump" is found in Sterne's
Tristram Shandy in the mid-18th century.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Baragona" <abaragona at sprynet.com>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Cc: "Paul Baragona" <baragona at bellsouth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: "Great minds think alike"


> Just found this on a British web site called Phrase Finder
> (http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/32/messages/338.html).  Does
> anyone know this book and whether it is authoritative?
> GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE -- "Often quoted in jest today, this saying
> originated in the seventeenth century as the comic-sounding 'Great wits
> jump.' Daubridgecourt Belchier first recorded the saying in 'Hans
> Beer-Pot' (1618) as 'Good wits doe iumpe (agree).'...The expression 'Great
> minds jump' appeared in the late 1800s..." From "Wise Words and Wives'
> Tales: The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk
> Sayings Olde and New" by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New
> York, 1993).
>
> Alan B.
>