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Chris -- 2018-04-11
In the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, I was commenting to my husband about how far we had fallen since the days of the “Minnesota Miracle.” I said that our infrastructure was disintegrating because we were still resting on our laurels. He heard “rusting on our laurels,” which actually makes a bit more sense . . .
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I like the implied imagery in this mistake.
Perhaps nationwide steel salesmen should make sure they keep trying to win that next sale – if they rest on their laurels their products will rust on their lorries. Sorry, couldn’t resist
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will buy a ridiculous hat – Scott Adams (author of Dilbert)
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day; set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life – Terry Pratchett
http://blog.meteorit.co.uk
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I like this one! Actually, it would make a great tabloid-newspaper headline for that very story.
And yes, those resting on their laurels are getting pretty rusty at what they do!
I think I may just start using this one facetiously—will your husband mind, do you think?
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I found 4 legit hits for “rust on his laurels” and one for ”...my laurels”. Very rare and very funny. Thanks for the laugh. I believe I’ll use it, too! I liked it from the gecko, uh get-go!
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This one confuses me. Preliminary research shows that it’s anything but new: I’ve found “rusting” in quite a number of established authors and publications, and not always as a joke (which is frequent).
(As an aside, the “Give a man a fish … ” is certainly not originally from Scott Adams.)
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Books.google.com quotes Scott Adams as writing “ugly hat” rather than “ridiculous hat” (on page 325 of Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel). As far as I can tell, however, the “ugly hat” version of that old proverb originated with Adams. At least people don’t seem to be attributing it to anyone else.
Many online sources attribute the original “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime” quotation to Lao Tzu, but I haven’t been able to verify that in any online versions of the Tao Te Ching. Other quotation collections attribute it to “anonymous” or “Chinese proverb.”
There are a number of collections of humorous (and not so humorous) variations on the proverb; one’s here: http://ake.ekenberg.googlepages.com/prowerbs2
As far as “rusting” goes—using books.google.com I did find an instance of it in Wallace Stegner’s biography of Bernard Devoto, which was pretty surprising. I’ll be even more surprised, however, if “rusting on * laurels” turns out to be a well-established, accepted variant. But who knows.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-09-17 00:07:50)
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