…And I should post a summary from the posted link.
In Collier’s magazine, February, 1919, Franklin P. Adams gave a version said to be close to the more current version, but he ascribed the quip to a prominent sportswriter named Hugh E. Keough.
The Quote Investigator article says that Damon Runyon also attributed the saying to Keogh.
Sorry, but O Henry’s use of the saying is not mentioned at all in the Quote Investigator article.
But there’s more.
The earliest version is from 1833, Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine: “Now we say that the race is—if not always—ninety-nine times in a hundred—to the swift, and the battle to the strong”.
In short, cynicism has been around for awhile. Shocked, we are, I’m sure.
Thanks. I forget where I saw it, decades ago, where it was attributed to O Henry. I can see someone mixing up O Henry and Runyon, although Runyon seems the most likely culprit. Oh well, the essence of the quote is understandable no matter who thought it up.
I suppose it falls in the category of famous sayings that aren’t, like…
Napoleon: “Never ascribe to malice what is best explained by incompetence.”
George W.: “The trouble with the French economy is they don’t even have a word for entrepreneur.”
Sigmund Freud: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
A side note on Hemings - she was said to be not too capable for her job, accompanying Jeffeson’s daughter.
In a letter to Jefferson on June 27, 1787, Abigail [Adams] wrote: “The Girl who is with [Polly] is quite a child, and Captain Ramsey is of opinion will be of so little Service that…”
Except one wonders about this last bit she says about Captain Ramsay “… he had better carry her back with him.”
Ummm… the captain is concerned that Sally may not be up to her assigned task, so - “Abigal, how about you suggest that Thomas let me take the slave girl back to American on a weeks-long voyage accompanying me?” One wonders at the overwhelming generosity of these older men…
I know that we are in factual questions, and I do not have a cite, but I strongly suspect that Sally Henmings was quite beautiful, given her mix of features between white and black people. In our modern society, light skinned black women with straight hair are frequently lauded for their beauty. Some notable examples include actresses Rashida Jones and Halle Berry.
This is the kind of utter nonsense one can fall prey to when being seduced by a single outlier historian whose narrative is appealing for whatever reason.
Austria-Hungary opened WWI hostilities by attacking Serbia on July 28, 1914. Russia partially mobilized its military on the same day. While Germany and Russia both wound up going to full mobilization, it was Germany that sent an ultimatum to Russia, and Germany that attacked Belgium, widening the conflict and making it inevitable that other countries would be drawn in.
Whatever various nations were hoping to get out of the war, Austria-Hungary and its ally, Germany, bear the onus for starting it. It’s part of the historical record.*
*The historical record is based on far more than The Guns of August. Works by S.L.A. Marshall and Max Hastings are recommended to help clear away some of the fog for you.
**Saying that “mobilization meant war” is like claiming that America instigated war with Japan by instituting a peacetime draft.
Do you also believe that Ukraine’s appeal to join NATO in January, and Biden’s sending 3,000 NATO troops to Poland and Rumania in February was an act of war against Russia that justified its invasion of Ukraine?
The idea that preparing to face aggression is morally equivalent to committing it, is the definition of bullshit history.
And yet… based on reality. I wouldn’t recommend them as definitive history but they are a good starting point/introduction.
When I’ve got 10-20 minutes to kill I do enjoy them.
Also, I admire the beard he’s grown over the covid years, he’s really rockin’ that look.
Yes, Simon is the presenter. Watch his stuff about more technical/scientific stuff and it’s clear he’s not the authority, he the person delivering the message. I’m wonder when he’s going to post an outtake/blooper reel.
I’ve been fascinated by the Austronesian expansion for some time. This article looks like a good place to start, although some claims seem outlandish (they may have reached Europe ?).
Moreover, as a linguist (amateur, alas), I find these languages particularly interesting.
This is not 1914. Its a different world. In 1914 armies were still horse drawn in the field but used trains for large scale movement of men and material. In 1870 the Prussians had used the rail network to mobalize ahead of the French, gaining what turned out to be the decisive advantage. In 1914 every staff officer in Europe knew that the one who mobilised faster would win. The war plans of every Army had extremely detailed procedures for mobilisation, with minutely scheduled timetables for the movement of every man and weapon.
It was a complicated machine and it was basically all or nothing, a partial mobilisation wasn’t something that could be done easily.
In 2022, if the Americans send 3000 men to Russian borders, the Russians can move troops quickly to deal with any threat.
In 1914, if the Russians mobilise and the Germans didn’t, large part of the German frontier would be lightly defended and it would take weeks to get troops there, buy which time the Russians would be deep inside.
Again - Hemings was 3/4 white with a noted strong resemblance to Jefferson’s late wife (her half-sister), and presumably her children would be 7/8 white. I would suggest maybe Meghan Markle-Windsor might be a better exemplar of her appearance?
But the difference in time would be the time difference between start of mobilizations. If A mobilizes a day after B, then A will be at the front a day after B. And it’s not all-or-nothing. It took days, so A will only be behind by one of several days of adding reinforcements to the front. By the time B has enough people in place to attack, A will have a moderately decent defense force in place. This isn’t the sort of arrangement where hundreds of tons of supplies and tens of thousands of men can be delivered in a matter of a day or two, considering the communications and rail logistics on 1914.
Unless it’s suggested that secret preparations to mobilize were happening earlier - but that’s the sort of mass country-wide action that’s difficult to hide from enemy spies.
While some of the Egyptians were lighter skinned immigrants from the north, and some dynasties were of less than pure Egyptian ethnicity (looking at the Ptolemies) they also likewise had foreigners from the south who were darker than the average Egyptian, including one dynasty of Pharaohs with Nubian ancestry. So while the “foreigners move in and take over” part had some basis in history the racist “they had to be White/European foreigners” is discredited.
Another vote for him here, anyone that has contempt for pseudoscience and offers funny lessons on how to debunk someone like Nostradamus, deserves attention from a group like ours.
This one looks like Simon is gullible by eating all the trash from Nostry, but at the end he shows how gullible the ones following the Nostradamus “prophecies” really are.
), that was a rabbit hole I wasn’t expecting!