"There's an old saying..."
Dan Goncharoff
thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Sun Sep 2 15:43:44 UTC 2012
Sounds very prescriptivist, especially when the source is in a foreign
language.
That said, Google has a version of the phrase from 1982:
"As one executive remarked it seems that 'No *plan survives contact* with
reality'. "
The Realities of Planning, by Bernard Taylor and others
I leave it to the experts to determine whether 30 years is old enough to be
old.
DanG
On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 8:37 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>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: Re: "There's an old saying..."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > > 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=EF=BF=BD1891
> > >
> > > No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first
> > > encounter with the enemy=EF=BF=BDs 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=3DbsJMAAAAYAAJ&q=3D%22Moltke+very%22#v=
> =3Dsnippet&<http://books.google.com/books?id=3DbsJMAAAAYAAJ&q=3D%22Moltke+very%22#v=%0A=3Dsnippet&>
> > >
> > > [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
> s=
> o
> > >>> 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."
> > >>>
> > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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