killing people and breaking things
Charles C Doyle
cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Fri Apr 29 14:39:20 UTC 2011
>From the (forthcoming) _Yale Book of Modern Proverbs_:
Kill them all, and let God sort them out. 1981 _Lewistown [ME] Journal_ 7 Nov.: "Two former members of Delta Force, the hostage rescue team, . . . work for him [Col. Charles Beckwith]. On his desk is a plaque that reads, 'Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out.'" 1983 Stephen King, _Christine_ (New York: Viking) 112-13: "A sleazy-looking guy in a cracked leather jacket was dorking around with an old BSA bike . . . . The back of his jacket displayed a skull wearing a Green Beret and the charming motto KILL EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT EM OUT" (capitalization as shown). The proverb is the modern version of a Latin declaration attributed to the leader of the Albigensian Crusade of the early thirteenth century, "Kill them all; God will know his own!" (Russell 1999, 287-307). Numerous individuals recall the ". . . let God sort them out" version from the battlefields of Vietnam in the 1960s, and as a tattoo and T-shirt slogan in the 1970s. However, the record in print from those !
decades is very scarce; there is this allusion from 1978 in Piero Gleijesus, _The Dominican Crisis: The 1965 Constitutionalist Revolt and American Intervention_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP), 318: "The principle governing the [Trujillo regime's] repression was to arrest them all and let God sort them out."
--Charlie
________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 10:14 AM
Jonathan Lighter wrote
> More sophisticated searching finds two apparent (but not conclusive) GB
> datings of a desk plaque and a poster, both saying "Kill 'em all. Let God
> sort 'em out," to 1979-80.
The expression "God sort all" occurs in Merchant of Venice.
Undergraduates visiting the SparkNotes website are offered the gloss
"I hope God figures it all out!"
PORTIA
Let me give light, but let me not be light.
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
And never be Bassanio so for me.
But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.
PORTIA
I’ll give light to men, but I’ll never be light or unchaste. An
unfaithful wife makes a husband worry, and I’ll never let Bassanio
worry if I can help it. I hope God figures it all out! Welcome home,
my husband.
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/merchant/page_216.html
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Re: killing people and breaking things
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I too associate the modern version with the Vietnam War, but GB seems to
>> offer nothing before Stephen King's _Christine_ in 1983, more than decade
>> later.
>>
>> "The back of his jacket displayed a skull wearing a Green Beret and the
>> charming motto KILL EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT EM OUT."
>>
>> For reasons that Victor suggests, the medieval quote may well have been
>> adapted (repeatedly) during the Vietnam War (perhaps originally on campus),
>> but I have no early evidence for it. My shaky recollection is that I first
>> heard the medieval version in Prof. Jill Claster's medieval history class
>> at
>> NYU in 1970 or '71, but I can't say for sure. If so, it certainly was not
>> placed in a Vietnam context.
>>
>> I have no evidence that any version of the saying was in *general* use at
>> the time. Wild-goose suggestion: It sounds like the sort of statement that
>> might have appeared in Gustav Hasford's _The Short-Timers_ (1979) (the
>> source of _Full Metal Jacket_), but GB offers no view.
>>
>>
>> JL
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster: Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
>> > Subject: Re: killing people and breaking things
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > I too first heard the expression c. 1980. Although I remember it as
>> > "...destroy things," but that could be a memory glitch.
>> >
>> > The context was a retired general taking a senator to task for wanting to
>> > send in the military to do what we would now call "nation-building" (they
>> > didn't use that term). The sentiment was not taken as "contained" by the
>> > senator, who was quite shocked that someone would actually admit on
>> > national
>> > television that the army killed people.
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>> > Of
>> > Jonathan Lighter
>> > Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 6:35 PM
>> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> > Subject: Re: killing people and breaking things
>> >
>> > Dave's instructor in 1967 must have been some sort of visionary. GB
>> upholds
>> > my impression that the phrase - as a cliche characterization - became
>> > common
>> > in print only after ca1980, and especially after 2001.
>> >
>> > The order of the activities is often reversed.
>> >
>> > As rhetoric, of course, it has the _faux_ childlike quality of "What if
>> > they
>> > gave a war and nobody came?" which was common enough in the late '60s
>> > (indirectly via Carl Sandburg).
>> >
>> > Moreover, "killing people and breaking things" (particularly in that
>> > emotionally anticlimactic order) makes death and destruction on any scale
>> > sound fairly contained and refreshingly satisfying. (Take that, enemy
>> > creeps! See ya!)
>> >
>> > That's why it usually appears in quotation marks. They allow the quoter
>> > some
>> > distance.
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 5:13 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > > -----------------------
>> > > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > Poster: Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
>> > > Subject: Re: killing people and breaking things
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > ---
>> > >
>> > > In GB, this is a snippet view from Amazing stories: Volume 15, Issues
>> > > 1-6, dated 1941:
>> > >
>> > > "...I'll stamp around and I'll break things up and 'l'll kill people.
>> > > I want you. Master!" and thus it went, ceaselessly. "He remembers,"
>> > > whispered Clive. "He's mad!" "Not mad enough not to know what he
>> > > wants," said Jason."...
>> > >
>> > > DanG
>> > >
>> > > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>
>> > > wrote:
>> > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > > -----------------------
>> > > > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > > Poster: Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
>> > > > Subject: killing people and breaking things
>> > > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > ---
>> > > >
>> > > > I'm writing an article about the military use of "kinetic", as
>> > discussed
>> > > =
>> > > > here a few times. A friend who has served in the Army defined it as =
>> > > > "killing people and breaking things", which I've since learned is a =
>> > > > common summary of the purpose of an army. The earliest I've found
>> this
>> > =
>> > > > phrase attested is from 1977, via Google Books:
>> > > >
>> > > > Armies kill people and break things; therefore, their commitment =
>> > > > involves serious questions as to who will be killed, what will be =
>> > > > broken, and how long and by whom the effects will be felt. =20
>> > > > Parameters: journal of the US Army War College: Volume 7, Issue 3 =
>> > > > (1977)
>> > > >
>> > > > Elsewhere, I've found it vaguely attributed to the Vietnam War era.
>> > Does
>> > > =
>> > > > anyone here know of earlier uses than 1977 for "kill(ing) people and
>> =
>> > > > break(ing) things"?
>> > > >
>> > > > Thanks,
>> > > >
>> > > > Neal Whitman
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