Ancient wisdom, or my own?

Mon Oct 21 01:02:12 UTC 2013

I checked YBQ, actually, and somehow missed it.

Thanks.

GAT

On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 4:06 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

> George and list members: A version of the saying about dismounting a
> tiger is listed in the proverbs section of the Yale Book of quotations
> with an 1875 citation given further below. Here are some other cites
> in the 1870s.
>
> Year: 1872
> Title: A Vocabulary and Hand-Book of the Chinese Language: Romanized
> in the Mandarin Dialect. In Two Volumes Comprosed in Three Parts
> Volume: 2 (Parts 2 and 3)
> Section: Metaphorical and Proverbial Sentences
> Quote Page: 573
> Column: 1
> Published: Rozario, Marcal and Company, London
> http://books.google.com/books?id=pK1RAAAAcAAJ&q=dismount#v=snippet&
> [Begin excerpt]
> ... it is impossible for him who rides a tiger to dismount.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Year: 1873
> Title: Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of
> Amoy,
> With the Principal Variations of the Chang-chew and Chin-chew Dialects
> Author: Carstairs Douglas
> Quote Page: 139
> Column: 2
> Publisher: Trubner & Co., London
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=XC0yAQAAMAAJ&q=%22cannot+dismount%22#v=snippet&
> [Begin excerpt]
> ... to bind a tiger is easy the trouble is to let him loose ...
> ... he who rides a tiger cannot dismount ...
> [End excerpt]
>
> Year: 1874
> Title: A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language Arranged
> According to the Wu-Fang Yuen Yin
> Quote Page: 345
> Column: 1
> Publisher: American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai
> http://books.google.com/books?id=qwY5AQAAMAAJ&q=dismount#v=snippet&
> [Begin excerpt]
> ... he who rides a tiger has need of great skill to dismount.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Here is the YBQ citation.
>
> [ref] 2006, The Yale Book of Quotations by Fred R. Shapiro,
> Section Proverbs, Page 619, Yale University Press, New Haven.
> (Verified on paper) [/ref]
> [Begin excerpt]
> He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.
> William Scarborough,A Collection of Chinese Proverbs
> (1875)
> [End excerpt]
>
> The key reference "Irrepressible Churchill" attributed a version of
> the saying to Winston Churchill in 1937 and pointed to the volume
> "Step by step: 1936-1939" by Winston Churchill. (I have not checked
> this on paper yet.) Other references point to "While England Slept"
> (1938) by Churchill.
>
> [ref] 1966, Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill's
> Wit by Kay Halle, Page 136, World Publishing Company, Cleveland and
> New York. (Verified on paper) [/ref]
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> STEP BY STEP
> W.S.C.: Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not
> dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Ancient wisdom, or my own?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I haven't had time to search yet. Harry Truman employed a saying that
> > was thematically similar. In this variant of the saying the dismount
> > is too difficult to attempt. Ralph Keyes lists the expression in his
> > book of Truman quotes and Google Books shows a snippet:
> >
> > [ref] 1995, The Wit & Wisdom of Harry Truman, Edited by Ralph Keyes,
> > Page 56, HarperCollins Publishers, New York. (Verified on paper)[/ref]
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding
> > or be swallowed.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Keyes says the quotation is on page one of:  Truman, Harry S. 1956.
> > Memoirs. Volume 2, Years of Trial and Hope. Garden City, New York:
> > Doubleday.
> >
> > A snippet in Google Books shows the following extended quote on page
> > one of a volume in Truman's Memoirs
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Within the first few months I discovered that being a President is
> > like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 12:01 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: Ancient wisdom, or my own?
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> George,
> >>
> >> There appears to be lots of evidence that it's not your own wisdom,
> >> but ancient.  At least to Winston Churchill.  :-)  [As everyone can
> >> tell, my investigation has been very superficial.  I leave the rest
> >> to the quote-hunters, who may need to consult Chinese texts.]
> >>
> >> Joel
> >>
> >> At 10/17/2013 11:46 AM, George Thompson wrote:
> >>>An apophthegm that has been in my mind for the last 5 years of so, is to
> >>>the effect that riding a tiger is really not all that difficult.  It's
> only
> >>>the dismount that is can be tricky.
> >>>
> >>>The thought has been coming into my mind whenever the fanatics who has
> been
> >>>so useful to their party's bosses in spewing delusional falsehoods and
> >>>allowing the bosses to look virtuous and say "We don't believe that
> he's a
> >>>foreign born Muslim, though surely many Americans do -- we wonder why",
> >>>&c., have gotten obstropolous, challenged the bosses' status, and
> otherwise
> >>>proven themselves a burden and an embarrassment.
> >>>
> >>>Please note that by careful attention to my wording, I have not
> indicated
> >>>which political party I have in mind, nor even what country they infest.
> >>>
> >>>GAT
> >>>--
> >>>George A. Thompson
> >>>Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> >>>Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
> >>>
> >>>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>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
>

--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org