Perplexing Proverb

[Dan Goncharoff]

My WAG: the original proverb was "Dark is the hour before the dawn".
"Dark is" was misheard as "darkest", and the proverb was
miscommunicated to fit "darkest".

Scanning GB, it is around 1850 that the phrase begins to be used to
represent periods preceding momentous change:

Aunt Anne's History of England on Christian principles - Page 138
Anne (aunt, pseud.) - 1849 - Free Google eBook - Read
"But the times of which I have been writing have been justly called
the dark ages of England ; it was indeed that dark hour before the
dawn of the bright day of the Reformation"

DanG



On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Perplexing Proverb
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>
> A reader of my weekly "column" about quotations on the Freakonomics blog has asked a question that has long perplexed me.  How did the strange proverb "It's always darkest just before the dawn" arise?  We all understand the point of the proverbial metaphor, but such metaphors are usually based on an underlying commonly accepted reality.  It's just not scientifically true that it's always darkest just before the dawn.  Can anyone help me to understand this?
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
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