[Ads-l] a saying: "not what it used to be. . . ."

[George Thompson]

In a post yesterday, Geoff Nathan wrote " Of course my memory isn't what it
used to be. If it ever was..."
This put me in mind of a saying that I connect with NYC: "the Village isn't
what it used to be, but then, it never was" -- Greenwich Village, of course.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there is a cuneiform tablet in the
British Museum that reads "Nineveh isn't what it used to be, but then. . .
."  Is Greenwich Village really the original site referenced?  Or are there
earlier examples?
I don't have a citation for this motto in my NYC notes.  I must have seen
it in a book that I no doubt own, but which one?

GAT

-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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