[Ads-l] Never complain, never explain.

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The NYBQ (and YBQ) list the important 1903 citation as mentioned by Fred.

Way back in 2010, I looked into a family of pertinent expressions
using “Never X, Never Y”, but I have not yet created a Quote
Investigator article on this topic. Here is a link to the previous
message.

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-May/099733.html

[Begin excerpt of ADS message from Garson on May 30, 2010]
Several quotations exist that employ a telegraphic style in which the
word "never" is repeatedly invoked. The subphrase "never explain" is
usually included in the sequence:

Never retract, never explain, never apologise. (attrib B. Jowett, 1893 December)

Never retreat, never explain, never apologise. (attrib B. Jowett, 1893 December)

Never retract. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl. (attrib
friend of B. Jowett, 1895 May)

Never complain and never explain. (attrib Benjamin Disraeli, 1903)

Never contradict. Never explain. Never apologize. (John Arbuthnot
Fisher, 1919 September 5)

Benjamin Disraeli and John Arbuthnot Fisher are associated with the
last two sayings, respectively. In this post I am going to examine the
first three quotations which are attributed to Benjamin Jowett who was
a prominent educator and Master of Balliol College, Oxford.
[End excerpt of ADS message from Garson from 2010]

Garson

On Mon, Oct 3, 2022 at 11:36 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> The ever-helpful New Yale Book of Quotations traces "Never complain and never explain" to a 1903 source.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Monday, October 3, 2022 9:53 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Never complain, never explain.
>
> A cursory Google Search doesn't indicate to me that Garson's investigated
> this increasingly common proverb. (Apologies if I've overlooked something.)
> Here it's attributed - at fourth hand - to William H. Seward. The immediate
> attribution is to   William Howard Taft, who is said to have heard the
> anecdote from his father.
>
> 1910 _Morning Oregonian_ (Portland, Ore.) (Nov. 27) 4: Seward answered:
> 'Early in my political life I made it a rule never to reply to personal
> criticism, never to defend myself from political attack. That rule I have
> followed faithfully. I never complain, and I never explain, and I feel that
> my adherence to this rule has made me what I am." ... "Never complain;
> never explain" has been Mr. Taft's personal rule of conduct ever since he
> became a public servant.
>
> And Lieutenant Colonel John Baynes of the British Army recalled hat it was
> in common use during the Great War:
>
> 1967 J. Baynes _Morale_ (London: Cassell, 1967) 191: Officers and men in
> those days used the expression, in respect of earning the displeasure of
> their seniors, "never complain; never explain." The Scottish soldier stuck
> to this, and in nine cases out of ten accepted his punishment without a
> word.
>
> In the first case, the advice is not to lower oneself by replying to
> carping critics. In the second, it's a defense against a superior's ire.
>
> Nowadays, my impression is that it's most often recommended as a way of
> maintaining the look of authority while keeping other people in the dark.
> It certainly seemed that way when I heard it in the '90s.
>
> Earlier exx. may be findable.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth.
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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