[Ads-l] cut the mustard

[Herb Stahlke]

And then there's the Pogo version:  Virtue is its only reward.

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: cut the mustard
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Dec 5, 2014, at 12:32 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:52 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole =
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com
> >> wrote:
> >>=20
> >> The anti-proverb "no good deed is unpunished" is a subversion of the
> >> proverb "no good deed is unrewarded". The punishment or reward is
> >> allotted to the principal actor by providence, karma, or the hand of
> >> God.
> >>=20
> >> Barry Popik has an entry for "No good deed goes unpunished (in
> >> Washington)" with key citations in 1938 and 1942. YBQ also has an
> >> entry.
> >>=20
> >=20
> > Ha! I had no idea that this "old saw" was so recent!
> >=20
> > And, IMO, it's *far* more likely to be true in fact than the =
> unreasonable
> > assertion that
> >=20
> > "no good deed is unrewarded."
>
> Well, there's "virtue is its own reward".
>
> (It usually has to be.)
>
> LH
> >=20
> > I've never heard that before now. Probably because it's nonsense. :-(
> > --=20
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint =
> to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >=20
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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