Graffito: "To Be Is To Do" "To Do Is To Be" "Do Be Do Be Do"

W Brewer brewerwa at GMAIL.COM
Wed Sep 18 12:51:58 UTC 2013


DG:  <<Holmes does say "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the movies, even
though it is not in the books.>>
WB:  Also repeated endlessly in the myriad Old Time Radio broadcasts.
"You must remember this," a quote is just a quote  (from Wikiquotes):
<<L'étymologie est une science où les voyelles ne font rien et les
consonnes fort peu de chose. (Etymology is a science in which vowels
signify nothing at all, and consonants very little.)
Quote attributed by Max Müller (1823–1900), Lectures on the Science of
Language (2003), Kessinger Publishing, p. 238.>>
According to my teacher Yakov Malkiel, the quote cannot be found anywhere
in the works of Voltaire. (But, as I pointed out, it sounds like something
he could well have said. Doesn't count, does it?)

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



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