[Ads-l] (Off list) Gioachino Rossini's quotation about the music of Richard Wagner (Request help)

Fri Aug 14 19:02:32 UTC 2015

Dear Amy,
  Your help in the past has been invaluable. Perhaps you would be
willing to help with the exploration of a quotation about the German
composer Richard Wagner that has been attributed to the Italian
composer Gioachino Rossini.

Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.

Here is a link pointing to an instance of the quotation in French. All
the surrounding text is in German.

Short link:   http://bit.ly/1NgiV2H

http://books.google.com/books?id=0NJMAAAAMAAJ&q=mauvais#v=snippet&

Here is the metadata.

Year: 1876
Title: Italienische Tondichter von Palestrina bis auf die Gegenwart:
Eine Reihe von Vorträgen gehalten in den Jahren 1874 u. 1875
Author: Dr. Emil Naumann
Publisher: Robert Oppenheim, Berlin, Germany

The goal is to get a sense of what is being said in German and to
possibly include a translation of the sentence before the quotation
and a sentence after the quotation.

Below is the text created by OCR (optical character recognition) by
Google. I think it has multiple OCR errors, but it is difficult for me
to read the German typography.

[Begin extract]
Lohengrin anzuzweifeln, als ich; nur daß es uns der
Componist mitunter recht schwer macht, das Schöne was
wir ihm verdanken, in dem Chaos von Tönen, das seine
Opern enthalten, aufzufinden. Sie werden es selbst schon
erfahren haben: Mr. Wägner a de beaux moments,
mais de mauvais quart d'heures! Dennoch bin ich
seiner bisherigen Laufbahn mit gespanntem Interesse ge-
folgt. Nur eins habe ich nicht begreifen können und
begreife es auch heute noch nicht: wie es nämlich möglich
ist, daß ein Volk, welches einen Mozart hervorgebracht,
diesen über einen Wagner zu vergessen anfangen kann."
[End extract]

Garson

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:10 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: The man who first flung a word of abuse at his enemy instead
>               of a spear was the founder of civilization
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks to LH for his humor, and thanks to Amy West (off list) for her
> translation expertise.
> Garson
>
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: The man who first flung a word of abuse at his enemy instead
>>               of a spear was the founder of civilization
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>> On Aug 5, 2015, at 4:07 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole =
>> <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>>=20
>>> Dr. Mardy Grothe who has written a series of quotation books contacted
>>> me about a saying attributed to Sigmund Freud. Here is a common modern
>>> version from brainyquote:
>>>=20
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the
>>> founder of civilization.  - Sigmund Freud
>>> [End excerpt]
>>>=20
>>> I found a German instance of the saying in an article by Freud
>>> published in a Vienna medical journal in 1893:
>>>=20
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> Aber, wie ein englischer Autor geistreich bemerkte, derjenige, welcher
>>> dem Feinde statt des Pfeiles ein Schimpfwort entgegenschleuderte, war
>>> der Begr=C3=BCnder der Civilisation, so ist das Wort der Ersatz f=C3=BCr=
>>  die
>>> That und unter Umst=C3=A4nden der einzige Ersatz (Beichte).
>>> [End excerpt]
>>>=20
>>> Here is an English translation from the "Standard Edition" of Freud:
>>>=20
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> But, as an English writer has wittily remarked, the man who first
>>> flung a word of abuse at his enemy instead of a spear was the founder
>>> of civilization. Thus words are substitutes for deeds, and in some
>>> circumstances (e.g. in Confession) the only substitutes.
>>> [End excerpt]
>>>=20
>>> Perhaps someone can determine the identity of the "English writer" or
>>> can find an earlier instance of the saying. If you have an opinion
>>> about the translation that you wish to share on-list or off-list
>>> please do so.
>>
>> Well, there's always Disraeli, or (if any writer in English =
>> automatically qualifies as an "englisher Autor") Mark Twain, if we want =
>> to start with quote magnets.  Too early for Oscar Wilde, and not quite =
>> cynical enough, and definitely too early for Churchill.
>>
>> LH
>>>=20
>>> Here is a link to the Quote Investigator website entry:
>>> =
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=3Dhttp-3A__quoteinvestigator.co=
>> m_2015_08_05_spear_&d=3DAwIFaQ&c=3D-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=3DwFp3X4Mu39hB=
>> 2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=3DNiaKIYmran6sKudxmKkxkM4jh7sKIq652rZ-vj=
>> PupJA&s=3D2lurSlR89w30c7vHKhvQabJR2JAMdSRbI32EeQjC58Q&e=3D=20
>>>=20
>>> Thanks
>>> Garson
>>>=20
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - =
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=3Dhttp-3A__www.americandialect.=
>> org&d=3DAwIFaQ&c=3D-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=3DwFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsS=
>> xPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=3DNiaKIYmran6sKudxmKkxkM4jh7sKIq652rZ-vjPupJA&s=3Dfn5Tfm=
>> F6q1qRvRq6cynZRxLkGxjkSCzfkxMz_xGiPIo&e=3D=20
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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