Doing badly what should not be attempted?

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Sun Sep 10 16:14:13 UTC 2006


On Sat, 9 Sep 2006, Barbara Need wrote:

> I believe the original of the bear/dog version was Johnson's comment
> about women preaching. (Not at hand, of course, so the details are a
> little shaky.)

A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs.  It is not
done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
        Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell, _Life of Samuel Johnson_
(1791) (entry for 31 July 1763)

Fred Shapiro


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