Another new proverb

[Jonathan Lighter]

Victor, it was also my understanding that four helicopters were used.
However, CNN today is talking as though it was really only two. Am not sure
which number is accurate.

Four is two, but since two is really one, it doesn't much matter. Five would
matter, because then there would only have been one.

Which is none. And Bin Laden would have outwitted us again.

JL

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:44 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Another new proverb
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That's fascinating. It seems to relate in Spanish to the desirability of
> matrimony.
> One is the loneliest number.
>
> Possibly coincidental, but the mystical notion that somehow "two is one and
> one is none" seems to have occurred to various sorts of people.
>
>
> JL
>
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Another new proverb
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Jonathan Lighter
> > > Former SEAL on CNN: "In the SEAL teams we say, 'Two is one; one is
> > none.'"
> >
> > It is an old saying, That two is one; one, none ; and three, Roguery.
> >
> >
> >
> http://books.google.com/books?id=wSTuAAAAMAAJ&q=%22old+saying%22#search_anchor
> >
> > This saying may be unrelated to the SEAL motto, but it is entertaining.
> >
> > > In other words, if you have only one, expect it to fail. That's why two
> > > helicopters went after Bin Laden. One failed.
> > >
> > > GB takes this back (probably) to 1994-95, almost unanimously in
> military
> > > contexts, and, indeed, especially among SEALs.  I've encountered it
> > before,
> > > but only within the past four or five years.
> > >
> > > GB suggests that the phrase was originally part of a children's
> counting
> > > rhyme. I guess they lived in a high-crime area.
> > >
> > > JL
> >
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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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