"a dark and stormy night" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


No, just the phrase "a dark and stormy night".  Not the first line of anything.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel S. Berson
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:27 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "a dark and stormy night"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "a dark and stormy night"
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> At 1/17/2008 11:56 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> > > >Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online has the phrase
> > > appearing
> > > >as early as 1706.  It may have been a cliché for quite a
> while when
> > > >Bulwer-Lytton got ahold of it.
> > >
> > > Will they have to rename the competition?  And, Bill, tell us who
> > > the new, 1706 eponym will be!
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
> >
> >Rogers, Timothy. A discourse concerning trouble of mind, and the
> >disease of melancholy. In three parts. ... The second edition.
> >Corrected. By Timothy Rogers, ... London, 1706. 522pp.  p. 369
> >
> >"These are some of the sorrows that deserted Souls often
> meet withal;
> >and indeed, but a small part of what they feel in this dark
> and stormy
> >night."
>
> But is this its first line?  Only then may I insist on
> renaming the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.  Except that "The
> Rogers Fiction Context" might be interpreted as requiring
> doing something unmentionable to literary efforts.
>
> Joel
>
> Joel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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