I was critiquing someone else’s book last week, and one of my criticisms was that the author took it for granted that the reader would know who a person was, and be completely familiar with him. My criticism was that he had quoted him numerous times, and referred to one of his quotes as “famous” (it was in Latin, and he didn’t even give a translation of this famous phrase), yet I didn’t think he could take this familiarity for granted. I told him that I hadn’t heard of this person myself, although I think I’m pretty well-read. I didn’t think my acquaintances knew who he was, either. I’d never heard the quotes he cited before.
The author was genuinely surprised at this. he seemed to think that everyone ought to know this person and his writings.
So i’m curious to know how many of your really are familiar with this person and know what it is he wrote that was so quotable. I’m asking for honesty here – I don’t want to know if you simply have heard the name, but if you know at least a little about him and what it is that he wrote, or at least one of two quotes from him. Without that irredicible minimum, I don’t really think he can be called “well known” or his quotes 'famous"
[spoiler] Lord Chesterfield.
Simply knowing the name (title, actually) “Chesterfield” isn’t enough. Nor is knowing about the furniture style. Or the cigarettes. Or W.C. Fields’ fictional son. this is Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield.
really. Even if you don’t know the full name, do you know of him and why he’s famous/ Can you quote him?[/spoiler]
After you’ve answered:
[spoiler]
From the Wikipedia site:
I don’t count knowing that last quotation as fulfilling the requirements unless you actually knew that he’s the one responsible for it. Something like that quotation has passed into general knowledge, although I’ve never heard it with respect to time.
Nope, never heard of him. The last quote is vaguely familiar, but I’d have attributed it to Ben Franklin instead (because everything cool was said by Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, or Kurt Vonnegut. Also, it sounds Franklin-ish.)
I’d heard the name, and of the book he’s known for, but it wasn’t familiar enough to where the name made me think of the book.
And it’s no good to put in a Latin quotation and not translate it. C. S. Lewis was pretty much the last person to get away with it, and he shouldn’t have done it.
I’ve heard of Earls of Chesterfield, sure, but nothing whatsoever about that particular one. And don’t recognise any of the quotes either. And I’m an edumacated Brit too.
Yes, heard of him, know of him, but I agree he’s not well-known enough for the writer to take those kinds of shortcuts for a general audience.
Of course, I’m a Virginia resident, and my activities with the Knights of Columbus often took me to Chesterfield County, right outside Richmond. I also know who Lord Fairfax was.
My answer is the same as jjimm’s, except that I’m a Yank.
It’s a human nature thing to believe that if you learned it as a young person, then everybody learned it as a young person. Unfortunately, it’s an assumption that is often not true.
Heard the name, wouldn’t have been able to identify what he did based on the name. I think I’ve heard the last quote but it would never have sprung to mind (recollection memory rather than recall memory).
Yes, I learned of this man and his quotes from doing a daily cryptic word puzzle in the newspaper. But I hadn’t heard of him in my education.
There was a time when it was assumed that if you had a classical education there were certain “givens” that everyone knew. Including a sprinkling of foreign phrases. I don’t think that stands today.
Many “simple” men of my father’s generation were surprisingly knowledgeable in this manner but we have moved into a sort of student-generated education system where much of the subtle has been discarded as unneccessary for daily living.
“Why should I have to write cursive if block print works?”
Why should I have to know good grammar if you can understand me?"
“Why should I have to know who Lord Chesterfield is if I’m doing graphic design?”
I don’t know if I was educationally defective before I knew of Lord Chesterfield.
The last quote I’ve heard as “take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves”, mainly because Lewis Caroll parodied it with some truly ghastly advice on writing poetry (“take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves” KIDS DON’T DO THIS AT HOME).
Yes, I’ve heard that form as well. The thing is, I don’t know if that quote about pence and pounds existed before Chesterfield’s quote (and he was basically riffing on it), or if his quote about time inspired the one about pence and pounds. Or if they’re wholly independent creations. I do know that I’ve never heard or read a quote about minutes and hours like that before.
I have heard of him, but only as kind of a “cultural literacy” thing – I definitely couldn’t come up with a biographical summary from memory.
Interestingly, upon Googling “Lord Chesterfield” … as you type the name, Google gives you a few suggested searches, the second of which is “lord chesterfield quotes”. The topmost link in that search is the Lord Chesterfield page at Brainyquote.com. The hours-&-minutes quote is there on pg 2. It’s a fairly well-known quotation, though it’s attribution is not (I’d say). A few others that might ring a bell here and there:
*"Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. "
“An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.”
"I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it. "
“Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.”
“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.”*
EDIT: One more I ran across that I had read before (but forgotten the attribution):
“Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.”
You nailed it, exactly: I’ve heard of “Lord Chesterfield”, and the very next things that came to mind were furniture and cigarettes, in that order. (Didn’t know the W.C. Fields reference.) I’m sure I’ve heard each of those quotes at least once before - they seem vaguely familiar. The last one I’ve heard many times, in many permutations: “Take care of the [small x’s] and the [big y’s] will take care of themselves.” I would never in a million years have associated them with Lord Chesterfield.
And I’m now dying to know what the quote was that was supposedly so famous it would be instantly recognized in Latin.
Though not very strong in the head, particularly at breakfast time, I reclined on the Chesterfield with a Chesterfield to contemplate the question. With Chesterfield indeed incommunicado (owing to the nature of his fictitiousness) I experienced a massive silence. The only consultation I had in this black period was Bertie Wooster, and his voice came filtering through the woodwork.
“For when it is a question of a pal being in the soup, we Woosters no longer think of self; and that poor old Chesterfield is knee deep in the bisque is made plain by his mere appearance - which is that of a cat which has just been struck by a half-brick and is expecting the other shortly.”
