[Ads-l] Nothing succeeds like success

[Laurence Horn]

Weird. It almost seems like an entirely different proverb in French, less
of a jeu de mots, given the distinct form of the verb (réussir) and noun
(succès).  While French does have a verb "succéder", it's a semi-false
friend of "succeed" since it only has the sense of "follow" (as in 4
following 3) and not that of "prevail" or "win" and so corresponds to
"successor" rather than to "success".

LH

On Sun, Sep 4, 2022 at 9:35 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The Quote Investigator website now has an entry about the adage in the
> subject line.
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/09/04/like-success/
>
> This adage evolved over time, and the earliest instances occurred in
> French. The saying moved from French to English by 1847.
>
> [Begin overview from QI article]
> 1826: Rien ne réussit en France comme le succès. (Nothing succeeds in
> France like success.) Written by M.R.
>
> 1827: Rien ne réussit comme un succès. (Nothing succeeds like a
> success.) Written by Jacques-François Ancelot
>
> 1837: Rien ne réussit comme le succès. (Nothing succeeds like
> success.) Attributed to Jules Janin
>
> 1847: Nothing succeeds like success. Written by William J. Snelling
> who was translating a story by Alexandre Dumas into English
> [End overview from QI article]
>
> [Begin excerpt from acknowledgement]
> Thanks to researcher Barry Popik who listed the 1837 French citation
> on his website. Also, thanks to researcher Fred R. Shapiro who listed
> the 1849 English citation in “The New Yale Book of Quotations”.
> [End excerpt from acknowledgement]
>
> I investigated this saying because I had received a request to look
> into a quip which is usually credited to Dorothy Parker: “Nothing
> succeeds like undress”. Soon I will create an article about this quip.
>
> Feedback welcome
> Garson O’Toole
> QuoteInvestigator.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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