| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 795.1 | Help with the first one | MARVIN::KNOWLES | intentionally Rive Gauche | Wed May 02 1990 17:24 | 7 |
| The `mice and men' one is from Rabbie Burns; the subject of the
sentence isn't `saddest tales', but I've forgotten what it is -
I think `schemes' come into it; they `gang aft agley' - which
is often misrepresented as `oft go astray', not nearly as expressive
as the original, it seems to me.
b
|
| 795.2 | | SHARE::SATOW | | Wed May 02 1990 17:24 | 8 |
| My recollection of the exact quote is
Of all the tales of mice and men
The saddest are "What might have been"
and my guess for the author is sportswriter Grantland Rice.
Clay
|
| 795.3 | Got it | MARVIN::KNOWLES | intentionally Rive Gauche | Wed May 02 1990 18:09 | 10 |
| Ah remembered: `The best laid plans of mice and men ...'. Some
sportswriter may well have quoted Burns, maybe unwittingly.
(How many of us realize that `the powers that be' is a quotation
from the King James Bible, or that `all Hell broke [?was let] loose'
comes from Paradise Lost?) Quotations are just part of the language,
and you can keep tracking them back until kingdom come (that one's
probably from the Book of Common Prayer).
b
|
| 795.4 | Of all the words of tongue or pen... | MINAR::BISHOP | | Wed May 02 1990 21:27 | 17 |
| Your sportswriter has combined various quotes, which I think
I can give some help on, even if I know I'm not exact on them:
One is: "Of all the words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are 'It might have been'"
No memory of the author, sorry.
Another is the Burns ("Ode to a mouse disturbed when plowing"
or some such, which starts "Wee sleekit timorous cowering beastie..."):
"...the best-laid plans of mice and men
gang oft agley"
Hope this (and a dictionary of quotations) will answer your question.
-John Bishop
|
| 795.5 | Writer or Poet? | GALVIA::SPAIN | Cagliari Jun 11th. Play it again Ray | Thu May 03 1990 18:07 | 9 |
|
Thanks guys. I'll try a dictionary of quotations.
It may have been a sportswriter who wrote it. I don't remember where I
saw it but I thought it was a poet who wrote it.
Thanks,
Gary.
|
| 795.6 | | LDYBUG::LAVEY | Sound of the calm before the storm | Fri May 04 1990 15:41 | 10 |
| From Bartlett's _Quotations_:
"The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley."
-- Robert Burns, _To a Mouse_, st. 7
"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, _Maud Muller_, st. 53
|
| 795.7 | | TKOV51::DIAMOND | This note is illegal tender. | Tue Jul 10 1990 08:27 | 2 |
| The saddest tails of mice:
those that are caught by men.
|