"Don't let the bastards get you down!" 1945 (UNCLASSIFIED)

[David A. Daniel]

Thought I'd try it on Google translate. "Don't let the bastards wear you
down" begot "Noli illegitimi carborundum." Interesting.
DAD




Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
Subject:      Re: "Don't let the bastards get you down!" 1945 (UNCLASSIFIED)
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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Yale DicModProv ["YBQ" is a much better acronym . . . .] has a 1952 cite
of a 1949 quote.

Portland _Oregonian_ 19 Mar 1945 p 4 col 7
"City Club Latin scholars got a kick out of a story Dean Edmund Wright
of Harvard business school told the other day.  It seems a certain union
grew so prosperous it decided it need an official seal, so the committee
on heraldry got busy and brought in a beauty with an arm and hammer in
one corner, a pretty girl in another, etc.  Then the members thought it
needed a Latin motto.  Nobody knew Latin, except one guy, and he mulled
it over a week, then came in with this:
Illigiterata non Carborundum.
That one stuck the City club scholars and they asked the dean for the
translation.  "Don't let the bustards grind you down," was the answer."


I wonder who bowdlerized "bastards" into "bustards" -- someone at the
newspaper, or Dean Wright?
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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