[Ads-l] Quote Origin: Life's too short for chess

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> A distant variant: I remember an Andy Capp cartoon with the
> last panel saying "Life's too short for chess."
> Around 1980?
> Apparently the phrase goes back to the 19th century.

Thanks, Dan. The quotation about chess is listed in compilations such
as  Benham's Book Of Quotations (1948) and Mencken's New Dictionary of
Quotations (1942). Both of these references point to an 1875 play
titled "Our Boys". I found an 1890 printing of the 1875 script.

The characters Clarissa and Talbot are conversing.

[ref] 1890, "Our Boys": A Comedy in Three Acts by Henry James Byron,
(Performed at Vaudeville Theatre, Strand, London on January 16, 1875),
Act 1, Quote Page 14, Harold Roorbach Publisher, New York. (Internet
Archive full View) link [/ref]

https://archive.org/details/ourboyscomedyint01byro/page/14/mode/1up

[Begin excerpt]
Clar. Talbot, it is so delightful to have you back again. I shall now
have such charming evenings with you at chess
Tal. At what?
Clar. Chess--the king of games.
Tal. Do you call it a game? Ha ! ha ! No, thankee; life's too short for chess.
Clar. Well, well, we'll say backgammon.
Tal. I don't mind saying backgammon, but you don't catch me playing backgammon.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 9:26 AM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A distant variant: I remember an Andy Capp cartoon with the last
> panel.saying "Life's too short for chess."
>
> Around 1980?
>
> Apparently the phrase goes back to the 19th century.
>
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2024, 10:23 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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