IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

dalmatia at eburg.com dalmatia at eburg.com
Mon Nov 2 22:40:57 EST 1998


TonyProst at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Well, here is the origin of that tired old phrase. It is the grounds for an
> annual turgid prose contest,  perhaps someone can cite the text from which is
> modernly taken, but Nonnos is 1500 years in advance of literature!
> 
> Chapter 18, line 87:
> 
> Nux gar ee^n skotie^, duspemphelos.
> 
> "It was a dark and stormy night"
> 
> There is nothing new under the sun!

Well, here goes my old memory again, but I am recalling Phil Bolger [a
boat designer] quoting the beginning of a poem about a ship at sea in
a storm in the St. Lawrence Seaway ~ A particularly nasty stretch of
water during a winter storm ~ And it began:

It was one dark and stormy night
And the wind she blow blow blow...

My feeling was that there was not a good outcome to this tale...

George

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George Blaisdell        dalmatia at eburg.com

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