OED Appeals: "rotten apple in every barrel"

[Laurence Horn]

>I know the third example as,
>
>"It's an ill wind that blows _nobody_ good"
>
>which seems one-sidedly clear to me:
>
>If something happens that's so bad that _nobody_ can make a buck off
>it, then it's got to be bad beyond measure! I.e. the companies that
>repair the damage done by such ill winds as hurricanes make billions
>of dollars.

My understanding of "It's an ill wind that blows no good" is similar,
i.e. it would be unusually rare if even something that appears to be
a general disaster [e.g. the collapse of the financial markets]
doesn't have some benefit for someone [e.g. the interest rate is
lowered].  In this respect, it's similar to "Every cloud has a silver
lining".  But this requires a now moribund if not dead reading of
"ill" and the non-referential understanding of the subject pronoun.
If that pronoun is read referentially (cf. the variant "That's an ill
wind..."), you get the negative interpretation.

LH

>
>Apparently, rappers and hip-hoppers understand it that way, given that
>"ill" is superior to "bad" in reverse slang.
>
>OTOH, I don't have the slightest idea as to what is exemplified as an
>antedating in this, there being much with which I am unfamiliar in it:
>
>  "Local Matters" Bangor Daily Whig & Courier, (Bangor, ME) Monday,
>April 17, 1882; Issue 89; col 4
>"The subject of the lessons to-day will be as follows:  high class, puff
>paste, oysters vol au vent, potato croquettes, dressed haddocks, white
>sauce, stork for jelly and fish a la conquest; plain class, boiled apple
>pudding, stewed steak, haddock stuffed and baked, boiled vegetables and
>treacle tart."
>
>-Wilson
>
>-Wilson
>
>
>On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Laurence Horn
><laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: OED Appeals: "rotten apple in every barrel"
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 10:19 AM -0400 9/16/08, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>>Thanks for this information, Larry. I'd never heard/noticed this
>>>"negative" version of the older, more familiar proverb. It's an
>>>example of what one paremiologist (Doyle) has termed
>>>"counter-proverbs": outright, explicit rebuttals of established
>>>proverbs (not to be confused with what Wolfgang Mieder has called
>>>"anti-proverbs," which are parodies or other ironic adaptations or
>>>applications of proverbs). A counter-proverb may occur as an ad-hoc
>>>sententia, or it may enter oral tradition as itself a proverb--as
>>>has evidently occurred with "One rotten (bad) apple doesn't spoil
>>>the whole barrel (bunch)."
>>>
>>>--Charlie
>>
>>  Actually, I could never figure out which was the original version,
>>  since I don't know enough about agricultural or botanical issues to
>>  determine whether a rotten apple does or doesn't affect the others in
>>  the same barrel or bag.  I suppose we can apply for funding and do
>>  the study, controlling for different apple varieties and degrees of
>>  rottenness.  The season is coming right up!
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>  P.S.  Another issue with these proverbs is figuring out whether
>>  they're intended as a direction or a warning.  We may have discussed
>>  this before, but two classic examples are "a rolling stone gathers no
>>  moss" and "it's all downhill from here".  Oh, also "it's an ill wind
>>  that blows no good".
>>
>>>_____________________________________________________________
>>>
>>>---- Original message ----
>>>>Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:22:01 -0400
>>>>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>>>Subject: Re: OED Appeals: "rotten apple in every barrel"
>>>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>
>>>>To support the second of the two versions I mention below, there
>>>>are 1530 raw g-hits for "[one] bad apple doesn't spoil..." (usual
>>>>continuations "the whole bunch", "the bunch", "the barrel"), and
>  >>>then there are the "rotten apple" versions.  A lot more for the
>>>>positive counterparts, but the negative version isn't entirely
>>>>unfruitful.
>>>>
>>>>LH
>>>>
>>>
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>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
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