Each week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations for which they want me to try to trace the origin, using The Yale Book of Quotations and my own research. Here is the latest round:
Science Frustrated asked:
“So who said, ‘once you don’t first succeed, try try again?’”
The Yale Book of Quotations, which attempts to trace all famous quotations to their earliest findable occurrence, traces “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again” to a poem titled “Perseverance; or, Try Again,” printed in Common School Assistant, Aug. 1838. No author is identified.
Mary Kathleen Kisiel asked:
“One of the history textbooks from my childhood attributed this to P.T. Barnum: ‘You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.’ I think it has a plausible completeness, don’t you?”
This is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln. The YBQ traces the Lincoln attribution as far back as the New York Times, Aug. 27, 1887, and notes: “According to The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Balser, ‘Tradition has come to attribute to the Clinton [Illinois] speeches [September 2, 1858] this ‘most famous’ of Lincoln’s utterances. Basler indicates, however, that there is no evidence of this saying in Lincoln documents. P. T. Barnum has also been a putative source for the quotation.”
Ann asked:
“Where does the admonition ‘Don’t kill the messenger!’ originate? Some say it has something to do with the story of Marathon.”
The earliest version traced by the Yale Book of Quotations is “Nobody likes the man who brings bad news,” from Sophocles‘ 5th century B.C. play, Antigone.
Ceolaf asked:
“Here’s a recent one, I think. ‘I for one welcome our new [something] overlords.’ Language log says that Kent Brockman first uttered this when he said, ‘And I for one welcome our new insect overlords,’ on February 24, 1994. Is he really the source?”
Yes.
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
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There is an exit of RI-146 for Breakneck Hill Rd. Recently, a friend (and native Rhode Islander) told me that this hill gave its name to the phrase “breakneck speed.” Is this true?
Here is one that has been making the rounds on Twitter among Canadian hockey fans and a hockey broadcaster. What is the origin of “Hudson Bay rules”? It is used to describe a style of play where there are no penalties called (i.e., the referee puts his whistle away). As in, “They must be playin with Hudson Bay Rules tonight.”
It might originate to the early days of hockey when it was played on the frozen Hudson’s Bay.
Can you find the origin?
Thanks.
I would like to know the origins of common internet phrases such as “LOL” (laughing out loud), IMHO (in my humble opinion), or “STFU” the definition of which Rep Grayson of Florida shared with MSNBC not too long ago. Also, I’d like to know where such mainstay phrases in internet culture such as “FTW” (For the win), “Fail”, “First”, and “OMG” came from. Who was the first to coin them? On what websites? In what context?
It’s nice when serious people get the joke play along!!
My wife uses the term to talk a “blue streak” about someone who doesn’t shut up. Where didi this originate from?
Here is a football quote that has been attributed to many people “Act like you’ve been there before”
OK College Boy,
Who was the first to use the phrase “happier than an ass-up duck”? As in: “This girl makes me happier than an ass-up duck!”
Jimmy
Charlestown, MA
I want to know why cattle are “doggies”? Any clues?