Re: MT VOID, 05/23/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 47, Whole Number 2381

On 5/25/25 4:00 PM, Jay Morris wrote:

On 5/25/2025 5:56 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:

          Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and
           nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
                                           --Anonymous

 To you or the toad. --Niven's restatement
Well, most of the time, anyway. . . --programmer's caveat to Niven's restatement
 QI believes that the statement evolved from a quotation written by a famously witty French writer named Nicolas Chamfort who socialized with the aristocracy but supported the French Revolution. Chamfort’s collected works were published in French in the 1790s, and a memorably caustic remark about high-society was included. The words were actually credited to a person named Mr. de Lassay who functioned as a mouthpiece for Chamfort.

Rostand's Cyrano makes a reference to it, apparently expecting the audience to get the allusion.
--
Gary McGath    http://www.mcgath.com