"money takes flight when might conquers right"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/7/2013 02:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>That's my guess, especially since both versions sound like nonsense.

Jon, surely you're joshing.  The saying (no
matter when invented) seems both plain and
true.*  "When a nation is ruled by a tyrant
(might) rather than by laws (right), then persons
with property (money) will prefer to take it
elsewhere (flight)."  ("Flight" has it over "fright" in this interpretation.)

And something that Isaac of York might be
imagined to have said in an historical romance
like "Ivanhoe".  Although when Ivanhoe, trying to
induce Isaac to subsidize his entry in the
forthcoming tournament, asked Isaac whether he
would prefer remaining under John's persecution,
Isaac replied: "There is little to choose between
Black John and Richard, yea and nay, if you are a
Jew."  (This too I did not find in the
book.)  "Right" anticipating, of course, Magna Carta 20 years later.

* Or did I mean "plain and tall"?

Joel


>Money is as at least as likely to take flight/fright when right conquers
>might, particularly if it's been heavily invested in might.
>
>Or even when wrong conquers might, in cases where the might is the in the
>right.
>
>JL
>
>On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 2:12 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: "money takes flight when might conquers right"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Isn't the simple answer that this combination of two traditional
> > phrases was fabricated by the trio that wrote the screenplay of the
> > movie?
> > DanG
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 12:26 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject:      Re: "money takes flight when might conquers right"
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > At 1/7/2013 10:19 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> > >>A website with movie subtitle (or caption) information suggests that a
> > >>variant of the saying with the word "fright" was used in the dialog of
> > >>Ivanhoe. Of course, captions are sometimes inaccurate.
> > >
> > > True, although "fright" has about 56 hits, versus
> > > "money takes *flight*" + "might conquers right"
> > > which yields only a hapax legomenon:
> > >
> > > "Apr 19, 2012 ­ To quote a line from one of my
> > > favorite movies "When might conquers right, money
> > > takes flight." From Ivanhoe 1952. All been posted before by ..."
> > > http://hotcopper.co.nz/post_single.asp?fid=1&tid=1721404&msgid=9965717
> > >
> > > I can't swear whether I heard "flight" or "fright".  (Either would
> > serve.)
> > >
> > > But still, did the saying appear earlier than in the movie?
> > >
> >
> http://www.docstoc.com/docs/80908184/February-16_-2007-Quote-of-the-day-_quotMoney-takes-fright-when-might
> > > attributes the "fright" formulation to Scott and
> > > Ivanhoe, but I did not find it in Gutenberg's copy.
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>"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