"Stop digging."

[Jonathan Lighter]

G. Legman traced the "Don't make waves!" joke at least back to the early
'30s.  It was discussed here in 2004 (with a demonic hydroplane added in
Wilson's 1957 hearing of it).

It makes me wonder if "Don't rock the boat!" comes from a version of the
same story, though that advice is undoubtedly more practical.  (If you're
not in hell, anyway.)

JL



On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 8:36 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Stop digging."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Laurence Horn wrote
> > This is all very nice, but "When you're in a hole, stop digging" has
> > always struck me as less evocative (and no sounder) advice than
> > "(When you're buried to your neck in shit...,) don't make waves".  I
> > seem to recall the latter is sometimes contextualized in Hell.
>
> In 1971 Isaac Asimov published a version of the tale Larry mentions
> that is set in hell. This does predate the 1977 cite for the "stop
> digging" adage, and I did not try to push the date further back. Below
> is a link to the 1991 edition (instead of 1971) located in Google
> Books because the text of the story is fully visible in the 1991
> edition.
>
> The set up: Smith arrives in hell and must decide which room of
> punishment he wishes to enter. He hears screams and shrieks from
> behind some room doors. He hears gentle murmuring from behind one
> door, and he selects it:
>
> Cite: 1991, Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor edited by Isaac Asimov,
> Story: 491, Page 331, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York. [Reprint of
> 1971 Houghton Mifflin edition]
>
> Instantly, the door was flung open, and he was propelled inside. He
> found himself up to the lower lip in a vast sea of overwhelmingly
> putrid sewage.
>
> With him were uncounted millions of others, and now the murmur he had
> heard from outside the door resolved itself into words as everyone,
> standing strainedly on tiptoe, kept muttering, without quite daring to
> open his mouth, "Don't make waves! Don't make waves!"
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=nFdOG5JxWZoC&q=tiptoe#v=snippet&q=tiptoe&f=false
>
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