0
   

How stupid is Trump?

 
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2025 10:35 am
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/42/77/b2/4277b2ea9650eea7d9567d33ba65f8de.jpg

https://www.cdn-liker.com/uploads/large_images/5f1edf560aecf.jpg
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2025 10:40 am
@izzythepush,
"May you live in interesting times" is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. The expression is ironic: "interesting" times are usually times of trouble. Despite being so common in English as to be known as the "Chinese curse", the saying is apocryphal, and no actual Chinese source has ever been produced. The most likely connection to Chinese culture may be deduced from analysis of the late-19th-century speeches of Joseph Chamberlain, probably erroneously transmitted and revised through his son Austen Chamberlain.

Despite the phrase being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no known equivalent expression in Chinese.[2][3] The nearest related Chinese expression translates as "Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos." (寧為太平犬,不做亂世人)[4] The expression originates from Volume 3 of the 1627 short story collection by Feng Menglong, Stories to Awaken the World.[5]

Evidence that the phrase was in use as early as 1936 is provided in a memoir written by Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British Ambassador to China in 1936 and 1937, and published in 1949. He mentions that before he left England for China in 1936, a friend told him of a Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."[6]

Frederic René Coudert Jr. also recounted having first heard the phrase in 1936:

Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honoured friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark "that we were living in an interesting age". Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: "Many years ago I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, 'May you live in an interesting age.'" "Surely", he said, "no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time." That was three years ago.[7]

The phrase is again described as a "Chinese curse" in an article published in Child Study: A Journal of Parent Education in 1943.[8]

Research by philologist Garson O'Toole shows a probable origin in the mind of Austen Chamberlain's father Joseph Chamberlain dating around the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Specifically, O'Toole cites the following statement Joseph made during a speech in 1898:

I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times. (Hear, hear.) I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety. (Hear, hear.) [emphasis added][1]

Over time, the Chamberlain family may have come to believe that the elder Chamberlain had not used his own phrase, but had repeated a phrase from Chinese.

The curse is sometimes presented as the first in a trilogy. Comedic author Terry Pratchett stated:

The phrase "may you live in interesting times" is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and finish with "may the gods give you everything you ask for." I have no idea about its authenticity.[9]

WIKI
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2025 10:42 am
@bobsal u1553115,
It's not Arab then.
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2025 11:07 am
@hightor,
I know it's never been proven, it hasn't been disproven, either.

Ima going to post this EVERYWHERE.
0 Replies
 
Region Philbis
 
  3  
Reply Sun 6 Apr, 2025 04:19 pm

https://i.ibb.co/wFR1kzqC/Screenshot-20250406-174031-Facebook.jpg
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 07:52 am
@izzythepush,
Who knows? How could anyone REALLY know?

No one seems able to say either way regarding any putative source.

I've used it for years without any thought of it's origin. You know me: effect over origin, origin as an unread footnote. I mean, I surely don't want to be thought of as appropriating any being's culture in a cheap and tawdry way.

As I ponder it further (a few seconds' worth at ant rate), it sounds like something my great-grand father might said. He was Flemish. He came from Flemland.



How's the family? We doing well, the gentle soaking rains that are the periphery of the terrible storms north of us have given us a very nice spring so far.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 08:09 am
@bobsal u1553115,
We're fine, my dil has returned from her enforced sojourn in Brazil, and she's back for good.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 08:12 am
@bobsal u1553115,
bobsal u1553115 wrote:

Who knows?


Probably Annointed, he acts like he knows every damn thing.
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 08:42 am
@bobsal u1553115,
How it was first used is not as important to me...as how it first was considered a curse.

It is far from a curse to me. In fact, as I see it...living in interesting times can only be a curse to someone insisting that it be so. Anyone not willing to insist...has to consider it to be a wish for something interesting.
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 10:24 am
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYorYfCXQAA-P8V.jpg
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 11:12 am
@izzythepush,
Never thought of that. It's comfort knowing I never be able to believe a thing he says. He's like a parrot with a bible, knows the words but not the meanings.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 11:14 am
@Frank Apisa,
Have no idea where I first heard it, but I use it as curse regularly. Totally uninterested in it's nation of origins.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 11:16 am
@izzythepush,
Good!
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 11:58 am
@Frank Apisa,
Hitler's 3rd Reich was very interesting, those who lived under it may well have considered it a curse.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Mon 7 Apr, 2025 11:16 pm
https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/449d112b0642d1c1e8cb655b5709842961f0ae644a869c09d305ececf18fe441_1.jpg
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Apr, 2025 12:48 am
https://i.postimg.cc/7ZCCN8V9/cockroach4.png
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Apr, 2025 03:37 am
https://i.imgur.com/gwMl0D7l.png
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Tue 8 Apr, 2025 06:34 am
https://i.imgur.com/WACHjzG.png
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Apr, 2025 11:55 am
@hightor,
Fact Check: No evidence of 2012 Trump post calling for impeachment if Dow drops by 1,000 points
Sorry, 'bout that.
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Tue 8 Apr, 2025 01:19 pm
@hightor,
What Snopes said was it hasn't been proven, but hasn't been disproven, either.

Second: he's a public figure and being treated roughly is to be expected.

You owe no apologies.
 

Related Topics

 
  1. Forums
  2. » How stupid is Trump?
  3. » Page 160
Copyright © 2025 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.05 seconds on 04/08/2025 at 04:08:52