famous quote syntactically mangled, nobody notices

[Jonathan Lighter]

Cooke was himself the "early biographer" (1871) referred to.  _Surry_ is
fiction.

Cooke, a successful novelist, was an officer on Jeb Stuart's staff. I
haven't found any information as to Cooke's whereabouts at the battle of
Fredericksburg. I suspect that he heard the comment at second hand
and tweaked it into memorable form.

Only to be untweaked by the Internet.

JL




On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 2:17 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: famous quote syntactically mangled, nobody notices
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Yale Book of Quotations and The Quote Verifier have cites in 1871.
>
> Here is a link to a book published in 1866. The quotation is in the
> table of contents, on page 364, and on page 366. The quote on 366 has
> an asterisk and at the bottom of the page it says "His words".
>
> 1866, Surry of Eagle's-nest: or, The Memoirs of a Staff-Officer
> Serving in Virginia, Edited from the Mss. of Colonel Surry by John
> Esten Cooke
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=q3WJJHXaqWEC&q=%22so+terrible%22#v=snippet&
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> General Lee's face filled with blood, and his eye flashed. Turning to
> one of his generals, who stood near, he said, as he drew his old
> riding-cape around his shoulders:
> "It is well this is so terrible-we would grow too fond of it!"*
>
> * His words.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 1:39 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: famous quote syntactically mangled, nobody notices
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On 6/30/2012 1:16 PM, Jonathan Lighter 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:      famous quote syntactically mangled, nobody notices
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> A famous remark attributed to Gen. Robert E. Lee is
> >> the epigrammatic feature of the "Introduction" to Frank McAdams's _The
> >> American War Film_ (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002).
> >>
> >> Lee is said by an early biographer to have commented at the battle of
> >> Fredericksburg that "It is well that this is so terrible! we should grow
> >> too fond of it!"  Modern renditions usually phrase it as "...war is so
> >> terrible, else..."  or something similar.
> >>
> >> The problem I have with McAdams's version is not its accuracy but its
> >> impossible syntax, missed by author, editor, and copy editor of an
> academic
> >> publication:
> >>
> >> "It is well that war is so terrible, that we should grow too fond of
> it."
> >>
> >> I find this construction incredible, particularly since, if anything, it
> >> seems to say that we *should* grow too fond of it.  Or is it just me?
> > --
> >
> > I agree.
> >
> > These days are there really any editors? (Of course even with good and
> > multiple editors silly errors slide by.)
> >
> > The last version above (the 'incredible' one) appears on the Web several
> > times (sometimes with "good" for "well" etc.), one instance dated 1997.
> >
> > -- Doug Wilson
> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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