Modern Proverbs appeal
Landau, James
James.Landau at NGC.COM
Mon Jun 11 13:05:00 UTC 2007
I heard a new (to me) version of Murphy's Law yesterday: "If you have an
option that only an idiot would take, sooner or later some idiot will
come along and take it."
There is an old proverb (old enough to have originated in Latin?) which
goes "Man proposes and God disposes". Apparently there is a Jewish
version of this proverb (probably originally in Yiddish) which goes "Man
plans and God laughs".
OT: about the word "threequel" (a takeoff perhaps on "threepeat"?): In
1966 I heard the word "prequel" in reference to the Lensman series of
science fiction novels by E. E. Smith. There were six books in the
series. Smith started out by writing the third in chronological
sequence, then the fourth, then the fifth, and then the sixth. Then he
went back and wrote the first and second. These two books therefore
were "prequels".
- Jim Landau
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list