"Don't just do something...."

[Jonathan Lighter]

Surprisingly, even the most reductive version of the original statement
("Don't stand there. Do something.") only goes back to 1936 in GB:

http://books.google.com/books?id=LYcUAAAAIAAJ&q=%22don't+stand+there,+do+something%22&dq=%22don't+stand+there,+do+something%22&hl=en&ei=OQK_TaTGLPDr0QGXtdXWBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAjha

I am sure this phenomenon (which I'm calling "no evidence of the obvious")
says as much about language and society as it may about linguistic
documentation, but I hate
to think what.

I mean, did it really take ca500 years of Modern English for someone, real
or fictional, to be quoted as saying, "Don't [just] stand there! Do
something!" ???

Is the human mind even remotely that sluggish? Is the original statement
actually another meme rather than the spontaneously recurring product of
independent linguistic free will?

My mind boggles once again.

JL



On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Don't just do something...."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > It occurred to me that the original cliche' might have been launched in a
> > New Yorker cartoon of ca.1938-39.
> >
> > But as happens frequently (and I'm not kidding), it has proved impossible
> > for me to log in to the New Yorker online archive.
> >
> > Maybe someone else would like to try
>
> JL: I suspect that the cliché that is being transmuted to create the
> quip has a long history. Here is a variant in 1877:
>
> A perennial courtship; and other tales - Page 4
> Ephron (pseud.) - 1877 - Free Google eBook - Read
>
> Come, don't stand there looking like a statue of helplessness: do
> something or other, will you." Mrs. Waveney fomented the ankle, and
> Hiram felt better. " But it 'sad — d bore," he muttered. " Suppose I
> shall be laid up for a fortnight ...
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=rQMCAAAAQAAJ&
>
> The New Yorker Cartoon bank has a partial match for the cliché in 1936.
>
> 1936 August 1, New Yorker Cartoon,
> "Don't just stand there—get witnesses!"
> (Lady who has fallen down stairs to man on landing.)
> by Sydney Hoff
>
> I cannot find the joke itself in the Cartoon Bank of the New Yorker
> magazine archive in the 1930s or 1940s. Here are some matches and weak
> partial matches in the New Yorker Cartoon Bank and the New Yorker
> magazine archive.
>
> 2001 January 22, New Yorker Cartoon,
> "Doing something never solves anything."
> (A mans speaks on the phone.)
> by Bruce Eric Kaplan
>
> New Yorker archive raw matches:
> May 01, 1978, page 104
> something,' while Vance reacts 'Don't just do something, sit
> there-until you understand
>
> May 19, 1997, page 18
> and May 18 at 4 and 7.) "DON'T JUST Do SOMETHING, STAND THERE"-David
> Neumann,
>
> Jan 24, 2000, page 45
> in situations like this: Don't just do something-stand there. I chafed at
> the
>
> Apr 08, 2002, page 71
> sharp edges of isolation. Don't just do something, sit there. And so I
> have, so
>
> Garson
>
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