[Ads-l] Never complain, never explain.

[Mark Mandel]

I learned a form of this expression many years ago: "Never complain, never
explain. Your friends won't need it and your enemies won't believe it." I'm
pretty sure I heard it in conversation, rather than reading it.

Mark Mandel



On Mon, Oct 3, 2022, 9:54 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

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

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