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?)
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list