Proverb: omlets are not made without breaking eggs (antedating 1796 May)

[victor steinbok]

Is it possible it was already an old proverb in 1721??


http://goo.gl/BKMLF
Dictionnaire universel françois et latin. 1721
Aumelette, p. 733
> On dit proverbialement, on ne fait point d'aumelette sans casser des œufs, pour marquer qu'il y a certaines chôfes absolument néceflàires pour l'éxécution des affaires.

My French is nonexistent, so I'll leave to to someone else to correct
the diacritics and figure an exact translation.

VS-)

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:56 PM, Ken Hirsch <kenhirsch at ftml.net> wrote:
>
> Here it is in a letter from 1748, again in a French military context:
>
>
> On ne sçauroit faire d'Omelette sans casser des oeufs
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=WVs2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA120&dq=%22sans+casser%22

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