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

[Garson O'Toole]

Many thanks to Stephen for the pancake version of the proverb; to Ken
and Victor for the wonderful early instances of the French version; to
Larry and Paul for the translations; to Jon for the anti-proverb; and
to Joel for examining the long s typography.
Garson

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Proverb: omlets are not made without breaking eggs
>              (antedating 1796 May)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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