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

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:04 PM -0500 2/4/11, victor steinbok wrote:
>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 ¦ufs, 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-)

I'll give it a shot:

"It is said proverbially that one does not make
an omelette without breaking eggs, to indicate
that there are certain things that are absolutely
necessary for the execution of matters."

I like the long "f"-like s's, which we've
discussed earlier in reference to English, that
show up in French here ("chofes", "nécessaires").
Can thst "l" be right in the latter word, though?
I'd expect maybe "nécefsaires", without the grave
accent on the "a".

LH



>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
>
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