quotable

[Jonathan Lighter]

>From the same article:

"Another Irishman is seen to dodge his head very low every time he hears
the report of a rebel gun.

"'Pat, why do you bow so low?' asks the officer of the trench.

"'Ye see,' says Pat, 'a man niver loses any thing by civility, 'specially
in the present situation!'"

Well, maybe you had to be there.  But enough historical levity for now.

JL

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      quotable
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Civil War wasn't very funny (one reason the sesquicentennial is a
> bust), but they kept trying:
>
>
> 1864 Robert Stewart Davis, in _The United Service Magazine_ I (May) 463
> [ref. to August, 1863]:
>
> In that swamp...a pleasant little surprise for Charleston is to be
> located,=97a single-gun battery, mounting a two-hundred-pound Parrott [Not
> what you think. -JL]. Colonel Serrell, of the New York Engineers, has
> charge of its construction. But judge of his surprise when one of his
> lieutenants, whom he has ordered to take twenty men and enter this swamp,
> says that he "cannot do it; the mud is too deep." Colonel Serrell orders
> him to try it. He does so, and returns with his men covered with mud, and
> says,=97
>
> "Colonel, the mud is over my men's heads. I can't do it."
>
> The colonel insists, and tells him to make a requisition for any thing
> which is necessary for the safe passage of the swamp. The lieutenant makes
> his requisition on the spot, and in writing. It reads as follows:=97
> "I want twenty men eighteen feet long, to cross a swamp fifteen feet deep."
>
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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