laws and sausages

[Baker, John]

The trichinae reference is a little misleading.  Bismarck challenged the scientist and legislator Rudolf Virchow to a duel.  Virchow, as the challenged party, proposed that the duel be held by eating sausages, one wholesome and one infected with trichinae - for research purposes, rather than as a result of unhygienic practices.  Note that there were no concerns about the sausage that was not infected.  Bismarck does not seem to have taken the response very seriously; the duel was not held, but because the legislature stopped it, not because of the sausage proposal.

The "laws, like sausages," aphorism seems uncharacteristic of Bismarck.  He may not have had too much respect for laws, but he was famously fond of sausages.  In any case, the record is clear that Bismarck is not a likely contender as the source of the quotation, and the case for Saxe as the source seems pretty good.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Garson O'Toole
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:29 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: laws and sausages

There is an entry about this saying at the Quote Investigator website
that incorporates material from the ADS list. The possibility of food
poisoning from sausages is mentioned in news accounts in 1867, e.g.,
trichinae.

Laws are Like Sausages. Better Not to See Them Being Made
Posted on July 8, 2010
Otto von Bismarck? John Godfrey Saxe? Claudius O. Johnson?
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/08/laws-sausages/

Garson

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 11:10 AM,  <sclements at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sclements at NEO.RR.COM
> Subject:      Re: laws and sausages
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This has been discussed on the list for 12 years.  go to the archive and search for the terms laws/sausage.
>
> A good summary is this post
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0801B&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&P=15691
>
> sam clements
> ---- "James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>" <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM> wrote:
>> My daughter asked me the following.  Can anyone help?
>>
>>     - James A. Landau
>>
>> <q>
>> Jonathan and I were discussing the behind-the-scenes drama of our favorite TV comedy, and I said that I wasn't looking forward to next season because I knew too much about how the sausage got made.
>>
>>
>> Jonathan then promptly asked me what the sausage refers to, and when its origin is, having heard the phrase but never an explanation. I remembered the quote about laws and sausages, but not why they referred to sausages as the gross thing. I guessed that it came in the wake of "The Jungle", but it sounds earlier than that, and I found this citation:
>>
>>
>> Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made. Though similar remarks are often attributed to Bismarck, this is the earliest known quote regarding laws and sausages, and is attributed to John Godfrey Saxe in The Daily Cleveland Herald (29 March 1869)
>>
>>
>> Apparently the OED doesn't allow searching for idioms. Is this correct? Could the ADS list help?
>> </q>

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