doing stupid

[Alison Murie]

On Jul 1, 2009, at 2:10 PM, Laurence Horn 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: doing stupid
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 1:58 PM -0400 7/1/09, Alison Murie wrote:
>> On Jul 1, 2009, at 11:08 AM, Laurence Horn 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: doing stupid
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> At 10:57 AM -0400 7/1/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>> At 7/1/2009 10:40 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>>> the older
>>>>> "Handsome is as handsome does" (somehow that one sounds as
>>>>> though it
>>>>> belongs in the mouth of one of Jane Austen's unsympathetic snippy
>>>>> minor female characters),
>>>>
>>>> Does Larry know how fortunate he is that he did not address this to
>>>> the "Long Eighteenth Century" email list -- where Jane Austen is
>>>> the
>>>> second most popular subject?  (I leave unsaid the first.)
>>>>
>>>> Joel
>>>>
>>> Why fortunate?  She specialized in such characters, along with
>>> equally unsympathetic and oblivious but usually more overbearing
>>> minor male characters, than whom the sympathetic female and male
>>> characters are far superior morally, intellectually, and in every
>>> other way (except sometimes in the purse).
>>>
>>> LH
>> I agree about the sympathetic & unsympathetic characters, in JA,
>> but I
>> do not associate
>> "handsome is as handsome does"  with any of her people.  Is it really
>> found that early?
>> I think  of it as later  XIX  early XX Cent. Dickens, maybe; Mary
>> Poppins probably said it, or at least someone in that
>> household.
>> (It was an expression peculiarly annoying to my kids, even the two
>> who
>> went to school in England,
>> as utterly incomprehensible; so much so that it became a sort of
>> family joke.)  I can remember
>> being puzzled by it as a kid, until the significance of "as" dawned
>> on me.
>> AM
>>
> According to yahoo answers:
>  ===================
> http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080728163731AApGCHu
>
> 'Pretty is as pretty does' is the Americanization of the English
> proverb "Handsome is as handsome does' taken to mean that "Physical
> beauty isn't important; good behavior is." (Personally, I take it to
> mean you are only as beautiful/handsome/pretty as your deeds.. Think
> Naomi Campbell for instance...)
>
> The proverb was first recorded in Chaucer's 'The Wife of Bath's Tale'
> (c. 1387). In 1766, in the preface to 'The Vicar of Wakefield,'
> Oliver Goldsmith wrote: 'Handsome is that handsome does.'
> First attested in the United States in 'Journal of a Lady of Quality'
> (1774). The saying is found in varying forms, including 'Beauty is as
> beauty does'."
>
Oof.  I shoulda stood in bed!
AM

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