[Ads-l] antedating "When the elephants fight..."

[Jonathan Lighter]

Oxford dictionary of proverbs has this from 1936, suggesting an origin in
the Belgian Congo.

1919 Colorado Springs Gazette (Feb. 2) 2: A native [of German East Africa]
recalled a tribal proverb: "When elephants fight, it is the grass that
suffers."

1920 Vancouver Daily World (Sept. 9) 8: Four years of war, during which the
natives ["of East Africa"] were badly used. "In their own language," said
the major, "'when the elephants fight, the grass is trampled.'"

1953 William Manchester, in The Sun (Baltimore, Md.) (Nov. 24)  1: The
Burmese have a saying: When two buffaloes fight, the victim is the grass
beneath them.

1959 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Oct. 11)  3H: some of the Laotian sayings
carry a good bit of folk wisdom....[E.g.,] "When the buffaloes fight, it is
the grass that suffers."

1962 Rockford [Ill.] Register-Republic (March 28) 2B:   "When elephants
fight, it's wise for ants to step aside," Cambodians told him.

1968 Akron Beacon Journal (March 3) A2: The Vietnamese have their own words
for it: "When the buffaloes fight, the mosquitos die."

IIRC, the version I heard in the '80s was "When the buffaloes fight, the
ants are trampled."
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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