The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

Lew lew at lewscanon.com
Thu Oct 4 09:30:13 EDT 2007


Tim X wrote:
> "The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of
> course, language."  Oscar Wilde

> "We (the British and Americans) are two countries separated by a common
> language.  G.B. Shaw


>  There is a well-known saying: Two nations separated by a common language. However, this phrase doesn't seem to have been positively recorded in this form by anyone.
> 
> In The Canterville Ghost Oscar Wilde wrote:
> 
>  /We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language/
> 
> In a 1951 book of quotations, and without attributing a source, George Bernard Shaw was credited with saying:
> 
>  /England and America are two countries separated by the same language/
> 
> Even Dylan Thomas had his say in a radio talk in the early 50s:
> 
>  /[European writers and scholars in America are] up against the barrier of a common language/
> 
> But where the original phrase came from, nobody knows, and it is probably simply incorrectly quoted.
<http://yedda.com/questions/origin_famous_sentence_quotations_8625651351715/>

-- 
Lew



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