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Several phrases were coined by one source. They include:
1.) Pursuit of the almighty dollar.
2.) The great unwashed.
3.) The pen is mightier than the sword
What (or who) is the source?
a.) The Bible
b.) Charles Dickens
c.) Ambrose Bierce
d.) Edward Bulwer-Lytton
e.) Mark Twain
f.) Ben Franklin
g.) William Shakespeare
Please make your guess and give your reasons for that choice.
Comments
Well, I'll give you two that
Well, I'll give you two that they can't be. Shakespeare and the Bible wouldn't have used the world Dollar. It's a corruption/modification of Joachimsthaler. (From Bohemia) That then became 'Dollar' (by various means), as well as 'tolar' (Czech). As the UK didn't USE the Thaler, but rather the Pound, they wouldn't have done it. Shakespeare might not have been familiar with it at that point either. The Bible - well, they used _other_ monies at that point in time, and the only reference I can remember is 'silvers' and 'alms'. Generic terms, rather than specific. (NT with the 30 pieces of silver, etc)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Famous coins
One Bible quote contains the names of three ancient coins. The famous writing on the wall needed interpreting because it seemed to be nonsense: "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." A mene was a Greek copper coin, often used by merchants as a weight in scales; a tekel was a Canaanite silver coin, frequently debased by the addition of pewter; and an upharsin was a Persian gold coin cut in half. The last was also a pun, Pharsa meaning Persia in one language meant divided in another. The other two names are semi-puns: mene could be taken to mean weight or to weigh, and tekel could mean to count or add up.
Numismatically yours,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Kingston Trio
I'm pretty sure the Kingston Trio coined the term "Dollar" . . . but they didn't give a damn about it.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I think that was the "Green
I think that was the "Green Back-a Dollar"
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
wild gues (very)
Twain??
Twain
Twain used the phrase "the pen is sharper than the sword" several times, at least at one occasion to explain plagiarism.
He also used "the almighty dollar" in a number of variations.
Neither of them originated with him, though.
Technology Without An Interesting Name
The geeks will get it...
-P
Your poetry has a problem with its meter
:-)
It was a dark and stormy night...
:)
The BRITISH writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined those phrases during the mid-19th century. He was a hugely successful and popular novelist whose tendency to empurpled description became easy to satirize. But he was a wordsmith of skill and deserved reputation in his time.
Note: Dollar had been for more than a century and remained for another century a nickname for any large silver coin, like the Spanish 8-reales which became the base for the American dollar but also the English 4-shilling which was a similar size and weight. Any silver coin larger than a "dollar" was a "crown", after the similar sized and named coins of the UK and the Nordic countries. As late as the 1970s, I remember British comic strip characters referring to half-dollars by which they meant a two shilling coin also known as a florin.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Lytton
I believe is also the originator of the phrase, 'It was a dark and stormy night...' one of the most clichéd around.
Angharad
It was a dark and stormy night...
....
Yup
Here's that whole sentence from an 1830 B-L novel: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
One of the Bay Area universities has a contest every year, named after Mr. Bulwer-Lytton, in which people compete to write the WORST opening sentence possible. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer-Lytton_Fiction_Contest
Knowing about that contest was how I knew who wrote the above quotes.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
$ is derived from (according
I remember this same story. In fact until the British overtook the world in dominance the Spanish were the leaders in the world of moneymaking due to the quality of their work.
Heck the $ symbol itself(according to the the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the folks who make US currency) is derived from a simplification of symbols for Spanish Pesos so the most American of American things isn't even American- is Spanish!
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
It goes back even further. S
It goes back even further. S with two horizontal lines overlaid (=, the sign for libra, or scales) was the sign for "solidi", which was a weight unit and derived silver coin in the Roman Empire (Presumably, 30 of such coins were the payment made to Judas).
Judas was most likely paid in
Judas was most likely paid in denarii. Originally, solidus were gold.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a
2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar. Yes, 8 reale coins were referred to as 'dollars', but it all goes back to the dutch/german/Bohemian. All of those coins were the same weight, and the joachimsthaler was the first recognizable one. The US used the 'dollar' because the British government refused to allow money to be minted in the Colonies. Thus, Canada and Australia, as well as the US, all use the 'Dollar', and not the 'pound'. Most 'dollars' that the US colonies saw were Mexican, and ugly as snot. They were the right amount of metal, but then stamped, rather than fully 'coined'. (which requires a collar as well as a good planchet)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Mint, anyone?
At the time, England couldn't even mint enough coins for their own needs, let alone the colonies. Spanish silver circulated in the port cities of Britain and the Continent, sometimes with stamps or chops to show the local worth. That's where the phrase "crown and sixpence" comes from since the Spanish ten-reales circulated for a time with that value. The uglier Mexican and Peruvian coins were melted down to feed European mints, including Britain. Sometimes, a mint just fed the New World coins in as planchets and gave them a hell of a whack to "re-mint" them. Talk about ugly coins! :)
Meanwhile, the purity of the Peruvian-minted "crowns" and "dollars" became the standard for all silver coins in Asia. So much so that later the US minted special overweight "Trade Dollars" to come up to the measure of the later Mexican silver. Not too successful with suspicious merchants. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
You missed my point. Spain
You missed my point. Spain (and possibly Portugal) allowed their colonies to create coinage. Britain required that all coinage was made in _England_. (not even in Ireland or Scotland, I believe) They also were one of the last countries to use 'struck' coin rather than minted, but that's another story (I was researching medallion planchets and getting collar dies made, and came across it)
So, especially in the New World, the only available 'government approved' monies were those of tight fisted english merchants, french florins, and everyone else using spanish coins from either Mexico (most common), south america, or actually from spain. Seriously - the reales from Mexico were often just a lump of silver that had a stamp put on it and was whacked with a hammer. Not even planchets. They were worse than old Mediterranean Roman coins.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Nope :)
I didn't miss the point, I just made another one. :)
But even if the British had allowed American colonies to mint coins, there was not enough raw material in the British colonies to mint coins with; no silver, no gold and no copper in sufficient quantities. While in Peru and Mexico, there were entire mountains made of precious metals.
After independence, the new American mints had to import metals until sufficient gold was discovered in Georgia, copper in Michigan and silver in Tennessee. The small amounts of coin metals in Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont just were not economic, though a few colonial pennies were made despite laws against them.
England had a similar problem; lots of lead and tin and some silver but not much copper or gold on her islands. They didn't want the colonies minting money because they needed the metal to run the mints in the home islands where they had been persistently short of specie since before the Norman invasion. Most of the silver in England came from somewhere else, primarily trade with Sweden, Germany and Russia. (Sterling <--- Easterling.)
That is, until the British navy started taking Spanish treasure ships. :) The first fleet of such ships captured completely upended the economy of Britain because all of a sudden there was plenty of silver. People left farms and headed to cities where you got paid in coin instead of corn. Even laborers had money to go see a play by that Upstart Crow or one of his fellows.
Because Spain had literally TONS of coin metal. What are you going to do with all of that? Ship it in bulk back to Europe? Okay. As ingots? Well, yes, lots of it, yes. But some of it they coined. Not so much for use in the colonies but for trade with China and Japan and taking it home to Spain. Portugal and the Netherlands also had useful mines, France, not so much. I don't know if they set up mints; I think Portugal did and what did they coin? Imitation SPANISH dollars! LOL. Because that was the coin that was recognized all over the world.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Spain and Portugal also both
Spain and Portugal also both destroyed their economy for quite some time by doing so, without thinking about what happens when you suddenly have a surplus of a previously scarce resource.
However, if they'd been allowed to, many of those non-English coins would have been re-struck in the various colonies. They just were too greedy. Keep in mind that during that time period, George was suffering from syphilis.
Hey! back to the original language part - this is also the period for Horatio Hornblower. Flowery language was much more commonly used in writing than now.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
half-dollars
Over 50 years ago I briefly took Highland Bagpipe lessons. My teacher, John Smith (really!), from Port Glasgow on the Clyde, told me that in his youth half crowns (2 shillings and six pence) were called half dollars. When I visited the UK in the '60's, a two shilling coin was called a florin.
Yeah
During the forties, half crowns were called half dollars and a crown was called a dollar because at that time, that was what they were worth and there were plenty of Americans in Britain. Later, it changed and a florin was worth half a dollar. When I was a kid in the fifties, pound notes circulated in San Diego as five dollar bills because the UK Navy stopped there so often.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Zasu Pitts?
Marnie Nixon? Millicent Fenwick?
Love, Andrea Lena
Mr. Dickens sounds like a
Mr. Dickens sounds like a contender but why he would write about another country's currency when pounds and frans would have been more logical choices made me yank back.
I love the inclusion of Ben Franklin, but the thing that got me was "dollar" as I know that his best works and ones that would be the basis for many quotes came from when he was still a loyal subject.
And Twain was good but "great unwashed" was not the kind of thing he would say, his would have been a bit more flair than that.
So it was Bierce or Bulwer-Lytton. I coldn't decide on either, so I googled and disqualified myself. I am surprised that the "Pursuit of the almighty dollar" quote is earlier than I thought. I thought it was 20th century not 19th century.
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
easy...and i eschewed the use of Google
Franklin....the pen is mightier than the sword.
What can I say....I'm a history fanatic.
Be kind to those who are unkind, tolerant toward those who treat you with intolerance, loving to those who withhold their love, and always smile through the pains of life.
Shoulda checked it
because you're wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pen_is_mightier_than_the_s... This includes variations on the idea including one from Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.
Angharad
The internet is sometimes a reliable source for ...
quotes. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens gives "Benjamin Franklin, Oration, (1783)." and "Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act II, scene 2." Franklin appears to predate B-L.
Sara
Between the wrinkles, the orthopedic shoes, and nine decades of gravity, it is really hard to be alluring. My icon, you ask? It is the last picture I allowed to escape the camera ... back before most BC authors were born.
I Sit Corrected
I feel so bad.
This is what happens when my generation is not allowed to use Google !!!!!
-waif the woebegone
Be kind to those who are unkind, tolerant toward those who treat you with intolerance, loving to those who withhold their love, and always smile through the pains of life.
F: Ben Franklin
I know that "The pen is mightier than the sword," came out of our country's beginnings and was coined by one of our founding fathers. I will admit that if you had asked me, I might have miscredited to Thomas Payne, a contemporary of Franklin's. Seeing Ben Franklin as a possible jogged my memory. It was partially a case of process by elimination. You didn't give any other founding fathers to choose from.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Pen is Mightier
I love the film/musical 1776. Many of the play's lines are direct quotes from the founding fathers. There is a line in it where Jefferson is unable to write the Declaration of Independence due to missing his young wife, so Adams sends for her to help clear his writer's block. As Adams and Franklin call on Jefferson the morning after his wife's arrival, Jefferson tosses them a paper and takes his wife back into his apartment. They are overjoyed that he has written it and open the paper finding a short missive.
"Dear Mr. Adams I am taking my wife back to bed"
Adams is appalled and Franklin laughs and says, "You know, perhaps I should have written the Declaration. At my age, there's little doubt that the pen is mightier than the sword."
Be kind to those who are unkind, tolerant toward those who treat you with intolerance, loving to those who withhold their love, and always smile through the pains of life.
The good Dr Franklin was
The good Dr Franklin was notorious for the female "friends" when he was in France. He was considered to be quite a 'swords man' with the ladies.
You could say his sword was rather good, even at his age.
Karen
Jefferson caught Franklin -
Jefferson caught Franklin - in his 80s! with a young teenager in his lap. He NEVER stopped loving the ladies. Even his eldest (legitimate) son couldn't be sure of his illegitimate siblings.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Life mask
I once saw a head of Franklin, cast from a life mask made of him in his seventies. He had a huge head....
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Ah, so a fathead that loved
Ah, so a fathead that loved the ladies!
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Thanks a LOT
Angela,
Thank you so much for opening this particular discussion thread.
Be kind to those who are unkind, tolerant toward those who treat you with intolerance, loving to those who withhold their love, and always smile through the pains of life.