another query about formulas/quotes

[Mark Mandel]

OT: When all *I* have is a hammer, everything looks like my thumb.
m a m

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> At 11:56 AM -0700 7/25/10, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> >http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/bear-music/
> >
> >on "some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you" (in a
> >number of variants).
> >
> >arnold
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> And, speaking of musical renditions, there's the related observation:
>
> "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug." (as in
> the song by Dire Straits)
> (Continues in the same vein: "Sometimes you're the Louisville
> Slugger, sometimes you're the ball".  But I've always thought the
> windshield/bug scenario was especially vivid.)
>
> Then there are the preference statements:
>
> I'd rather be a hammer than a nail.
> Yes I would.
> If I only could,
> I surely would.
> (Paul Simon, El Condor Pasa)
>
> Not quite the same, but there is an implication that one is sometimes
> the hammer/windshield and sometimes the nail/bug.  (But then again,
> getting nailed in this situation is not that different from getting
> hammered.)
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org