"There's an old saying..."

Sun Sep 2 12:37:23 UTC 2012

Yes.

Because a "saying," by definition, means the words themselves (perhaps
with inconsequential variations), not the general  idea.

Moreover, the pithy new version wryly and hyperbolically asserts that the
_whole plan_ (any plan) is just the *first* thing that will go wrong. That
implies that everything you do will gang agley, and not only aft. (Is
Burns's line really the same "saying" as both Moltke's and Gen. Honore's on
CNN? Of course not, though the sentiments are just as clearly related.) Nor
was the quasi-malign Murphy's Law view of reality that lies behind
Honore's formulation was not widely endorsed by nineteenth-century
intellectuals.

JL

On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "There's an old saying..."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thank you, Garson!
>
> I have to ask if it is surprising that a shorthand version of
> something originally written in a foreign language 132 years ago and
> still studied at West Point has been described as an old saying in the
> Army?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Sep 1, 2012, at 9:02 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: "There's an old saying..."
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Dan Goncharoff wrote
> >> Didn't Moltke, der Grosse Schweiger, say this (in German)?
> >> "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy".
> >
> > The Yale Book of Quotations provides the following translation:
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Helmuth von Moltke
> > Prussian military leader, 1800�1891
> >
> > No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first
> > encounter with the enemy�s main force.
> > Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften (1880)
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Here is a cite showing a translation into English in 1891 of an
> > extended version of the quotation.
> >
> > Cite: 1891 January, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution
> > (Great Britain) Volume 35, Number 155, Cruizer-War and Coast Defence
> > by Commander H. Garbett, [Translated by  permission from the
> > "Mittheilungen aus dem Gebiete des Seewesens"] Start Page 47, Quote
> > Page 47, Published by Harrison and Sons, London. (Google Books full
> > view)
> >
> >
> http://books.google.com/books?id=bsJMAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Moltke+very%22#v=snippet&
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Field-Marshal Moltke very rightly lays down in the volume issued by
> > the General Staff on the Franco-German War, that no plan of operations
> > can reach with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the
> > enemy's main force, and that only uninitiated civilians believe they
> > can see in the progress of a campaign the prearranged execution of an
> > original plan, all the details of which have been previously settled
> > and carried out to the end.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: "There's an old saying..."
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Didn't Moltke, der Grosse Schweiger, say this (in German)?
> >>
> >> "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy".
> >>
> >> DanG
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 10:08 AM, 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:      "There's an old saying..."
> >>>
> >>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Maybe everyone already knows this but me (Charlie and Garson in
> >>> particular), but people seem to say "There's an old saying...." when
> what
> >>> they mean is something like, "I heard somebody say this, or something
> very
> >>> much like it, on one occasion, and it stuck in my mind because it's so
> >>> clever or succinct."
> >>>
> >>> Seeming exmple from CNN the other day: "There's an old saying in the
> Army:
> >>> 'The first thing to go bad is the plan.'"
> >>>
> >>> Sound like a genuine proverb, right?  However, a Google search yields
> >>> nothing. Of course, I may have overlooked some slight variant that
> would
> >>> get 10,000 hits, but the principle still seems sound: for most people,
> it
> >>> only takes one utterance plus a good memory to turn a catchy
> generalization
> >>> an "old saying."
> >>>
> >>> JL
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>
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> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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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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