OED Appeals: "rotten apple in every barrel"

[Wilson Gray]

Well, it does require a little effort on the part of the hearer /
reader. Nevertheless, it's probably less than that required of the
uninitiated in order to understand it than that required by, e.g. the
well-known, Mozartian work, "Greek Grice." :-)

OTOH, the total collapse of the U.S. financial system is an ill wind, indeed.

-Wilson


On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> 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"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>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! E.g. 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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>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>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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>
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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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org