Photo: j.o.h.n. walkerEach week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research. Here is the latest round.
Travis asked:
Where does the phrase “fog of war” come from, and what was it originally intended to refer to?
The Yale Book of Quotations has the following entry:
“War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.”
Karl von Clausewitz, On War bk. 1, ch. 3 (1832-34). Perhaps the closest Clausewitz comes to using the expression “the fog of war,” which is often attributed to him. Jay M. Shafritz, Words on War, quotes Chevalier Floard, Nouvelles Decouvertes sur la Guerre (1724); “The coup d-oeuil is a gift of God and cannot be acquired; but if professional knowledge does not perfect it, one only sees things imperfectly and in a fog.”
Eric M. Jones asked:
“Ninety-six percent of success is just showing up. …” Woody Allen
Of course, the number is 80% and it is from the film Annie Hall in 1977. My intention in commenting on it was to introduce the notion that numbers in quotes have a way of floating around.
I can’t find anything earlier, so it might be a clever invention of Woody Allen’s, but as pure speculation he may have read “New Dimensions” Robert Silverberg – 1972
‘… ninety-nine percent of life is sheer abstraction….’Only a guess, but the time is about right.
The earliest version found by The Yale Book of Quotations was “Showing up is 80 percent of life,” which appeared in The New York Times, Aug. 21, 1977 (attributed to Allen). I have never seen any reference to this saying being used in Annie Hall; any reader who knows that it is used in that film, please let me know where in the film it occurs.
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
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I once asked one of our campus librarians about the source of the Woody Allen quote (which I wanted to cite) and was told that it came from his book, “Without Feathers.”
they both can be found in Pareto’s Law. Pareto’s says that there are 20% of the item in a supermarket, that they sell 80% of the time. sometimes do do the double, 20% X 20% = 4%, which says there are 4% of the items that a super sells 96% of the time
How about the Fog of Marijuana Smoke that envelopes California Policy Decisions.
what’s the origin of this: academia is where the rubber meets the sky
Somewhere Ayn Rand supposedly said that caring about the success of strangers on sports teams that happen to carry the name of my city or school is a waste of time. Did she say this?
I’ve got a combination of quotes I’d like to learn about:
The first is “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
The second would be about the origin of “burning bridges” in the metaphorical sense.
My father has said for years “we’ll burn those bridges when we get to them” in a joking sense, but says he didn’t coin the phrase. I’d like to know if you can find a source for that quote, otherwise I’ll tell him to start taking credit for it.
Thanks
(repost from 06JUNE2010)
@17-rachel.
Rachel,
Your professor may have written or seen:
J. Gray and A. Szalay, “Where the rubber meets the sky: Bridging the gap betweed databases and science,” Bulletinof the Technical Committee on Data Engineering, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 3-11, December 2004.
If you Google it you find your question and my answer. Not a good indication that it has caught on. Give it up. You can claim YOU said it, and I’ll back you up.
So you think you are better at googling than we are?