More early "Murphy-ish" citations (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Larry beat me to the punch in making this point.  Complaining that you had a bad day in which everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong is very different from the Murphy's Law proverb.  I even distinguish between statements that, in some limited area such as "at sea" or "the production of a magical effect for the first time in public," anything that can go wrong will, and statements of universal applicability.  What is striking about the early magic citations is that some of them refer to "the malignity of matter" or "the depravity of inanimate objects," making them, in my view, plausible influences on the later engineering/scientific/aviation vector of "Murphy's Law."

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 1:50 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: More early "Murphy-ish" citations (UNCLASSIFIED)

I think we need to distinguish the episodic ones (like the first two
and the last) from the timeless/proverbial ones (most of the others),
with only the latter being true precursors of Murphy.  It's
conceivable that the episodic ones were intended to allude to a
pre-existing proverb or dictum, but it's far from certain.

LH

At 11:33 AM -0600 1/8/08, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>Caveats: NONE
>
>
>
>_The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions_ By
>Vilhjalmur Stefansson  NY: MacMillan 1921. page 594
>
>"It seemed, too, that everything that could possibly go wrong did go
>wrong and that every chance was decicded against us." [Google books full
>view]
>
>_Inside Europe_ By John Gunther NY: Harper, 1938 p. 330
>"Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong."  [Goggle Books
>Snippet View -- check against hard copy]
>
>_The Television Program: Its Direction and Production_ By Edward
>Stasheff, Rudy Bretz New York: Hill and Wang, 1962 p. 175
>"By the Law of Inverse Probabilities, which states that anything that
>can possibly go wrong will, . . ." [Goggle Books Snippet View -- check
>against hard copy]
>
>_The Butcher; the ascent of Yerupaja_ by John Sack;  New York: Rinehart,
>1952.  p. 13
>"It goes like this: anything that can possibly go wrong, does. "
>[Goggle Books Snippet View -- check against hard copy.  The phrase
>"possibly go wrong" appears 5 times in the book; most are not visible
>with Google books]
>
>_The Sackbut_ v.1:6-9 (1920/21)p. 351
>"If they can possibly go wrong you can be sure they will." [Goggle Books
>Snippet View -- check against hard copy]
>
>
>_Writing and Producing the Radio Play_ By Carl Alfred Buss [Thesis].
>Madison, WI:  Univ of WI, 1933 p. 5.
>"It always seems that on my busiest days everything that can possibly go
>wrong does."  [Goggle Books Snippet View -- check against hard copy]
>
>_The Beloved Woman_ By Kathleen Thompson Norris.  Garden City, NY:
>Doubleday, Page & Co., 1921.  p. 190
>"She was alert, serious, authoritative; her manner expressed an anxious
>certainty that everything that could possibly go wrong was about to do
>so." [Google books full view]
>Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>Caveats: NONE
>
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