[Ads-l] Quote Origin: Life Is Too Short To Learn German

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Linguists on this list might find the saying in the subject line
entertaining. The statement has been attributed to U.S. humorist Mark
Twain, Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, English satirist Thomas Love
Peacock, and English classical scholar Richard Porson. A translator
inquired about the provenance. Here is a link to the QI article:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/11/24/learn-german/

The attributions to Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde are unsupported. The
earliest known match appeared in the satirical novel "Gryll Grange" by
Thomas Love Peacock. The work was serialized in "Fraser's Magazine" of
London in 1860 and published as a book in 1861.

A fictional character named Algernon Falconer uttered the statement
while he was discussing his library which centered on books in
English, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, but not German:

[Begin excerpt]
It was a dictum of Porson, that "Life is too short to learn German:"
meaning, I apprehend, not that it is too difficult to be acquired
within the ordinary space of life, but that there is nothing in it to
compensate for the portion of life bestowed on its acquirement,
however little that may be.
[End excerpt]

Richard Porson was a scholar at the University of Cambridge who was
acclaimed for his knowledge of Greek. He was born in 1759 and died in
1808. I found no substantive evidence that Porson authored the
statement, and I conjecture that Thomas Love Peacock crafted the quip
and assigned it to Porson to accentuate its humor. Alternatively,
Peacock was simply repeating a pre-existing joke.

Feedback welcome,
Garson O'Toole

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