December 02, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Question of the day
I've been struggling to recall a quotation I once heard. It starts "The British Isles, it is said, are composed of four races of man", and goes on to list Scots, Welsh, Irish and British, with a zinger for each.
I remember the Welsh one: "The Welsh, who pray on their knees and on their neighbours"
. . . and the ending, which goes, "And the English, who by considering themselves a race of self-made men, thereby relieve the Almighty of a terrible burden". But I can't remember the rest. Can anyone else provide a source and/or the rest of the quote?
Update
The full quote is:
The British Isles are composed of four races of man
. . . the Scottish, who keep the sabbath--and everything else they can get their hands on.
. . . the Welsh, who pray on their knees--and on their neighbours.
. . . the Irish, who don't know what they want, but are willing to fight for it anyway.
. . . and the English, who consider themselves a race of self-made men, thereby relieving the almighty of a terrible burden.
Thanks to my commenters. Y'all rock.
Posted by Jane Galt at December 2, 2004 04:58 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksFull quote, but no source:
http://www.rampantscotland.com/humour/blhumeng.htm
Found on the web at http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/page2.html
The British are made up of four races:
- The Welsh, who pray on their knees and their neighbors;
- The Scots, who keep the Sabbath and anything else they can lay their hands on;
- The Irish, who don't know what they want but are willing to die for it;
- And the English, who consider themselves a race of self-made men, thereby relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility. -- George Bernard Shaw
Never heard the quote, but surely it's "English", not "British"? Ye'll get in trouble, at least with your Scottish, Welsh and some Irish, for confusing the two...
Posted by: Contributor A on December 2, 2004 05:13 PMYou might also appreciate Flanders and Swann's A song of Patriotic Prejudice
Amazon have audio samples
Posted by: Kevin Marks on December 2, 2004 05:18 PMI have a grammar/nomenclature question.
Is that an example of syllepsis or zeugma? Which?
Thanks.
(Back when I still used dictionary words as passwords, I used those two.)
Posted by: lpdbw on December 3, 2004 12:04 AMThis is completely off-topic, but the "british" subject made me think of it again:
Jane, why do you use british (or canadian) spelling? i.e. colour, practise, cheque, etc. I've been reading your blog over the past couple of years and AFAIK you were raised and educated in the U.S.
Just curious...
Posted by: Chris Anderson on December 3, 2004 11:06 AMContributor A: to be excessively and boringly pedantic back when Johnson was writing there were three kingdoms and a principality that made up the British Isles, England, Wales (the p) Scotland and Ireland. Back then the whole group together would be called Britons...now the Southern Irish would not but many of the Northern Irish would still consider themselves to be so. Rather the problem actually.
Chris, I hadn’t noticed that Jane used English spelling.
That would explain why I’ve always found her prose so elegant.
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