"There's an old saying..."

Sun Sep 2 16:29:14 UTC 2012

In that case, I'll go further. Honore' was applying his Murphy-style "old
saying" not to military planning but to civic plans for dealing with
Hurricane Isaac. The form of its expression (i.e., its words and
tone) makes it far more broadly applicable than Moltke's
observation specifying "contact with the enemy."

I suspect that if Honore' had run his "saying" past Moltke as an acceptable
paraphrase of the German's pronouncement (which Clausewitz had alluded to
far earlier as the "friction" of battle, which begins to erode plans
immediately), Moltke would have cocked an eybrow and said:

 "You are a ferry egzentrik fellow."

JL

On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 11:43 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..."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> > -----------------------
> > 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
> > > >
> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> > > 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."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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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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