“The shot heard round the world.”

 

THE ORIGINAL THING HEARD ROUND THE WORLD: “The shot heard round the world.”        Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)        American poet, essayist and lecturer        This famous line is from Emerson’s poem commonly called the “Concord Hymn.” (Full title: ““Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument.”)It’s the last line of the first verse:               “By the rude bridge that arched the flood,                Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,                Here once the embattled farmers stood                And fired the shot heard round the world.”        Emerson wrote the poem in 1836 for a ceremony to celebrate the completion of a monument to the American “Minutemen” who fought at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. These skirmishes between rebellious Americans and British troops on April 19, 1775 are generally regarded as the beginning of the Revolutionary War.        That morning, some 700 British Army regulars were marching through Lexington toward Concord to confiscate an illegal weapons arsenal stored there by the Massachusetts militia. When the “Redcoats” got to Lexington, their way was blocked by about 80 local militiamen. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the Americans to disperse, which they actually began to do. Then, suddenly, someone fired a shot. Nobody knew who it was. But, when it rang out, both sides started firing at each other and the American Revolution was underway.         At the official dedication of the Concord Monument on July 4, 1837, Emerson’s poem was sung to the tune of a hymn called “The Old Hundredth,” a.k.a. “The Old 100th” or “The Old Hundred.” (Hence the use of the word “hymn” in the title.)        His memorable phrase “the shot heard round the world” created a phrase formula that has since been used to refer to various other things that generate wide attention or notoriety. The lists things said to have been heard or seen “round the world” or “around the world” are enormous. You can see more than a million examples that use “heard” in the posts shown in the Google search at this link. You can see over a million examples using “seen” in the posts at this link. Undoubtedly, there will be many more in the future. (For more background on the Emerson quote, see the post on my This Day in Quotes blog here.)

THE SLAP SEEN AROUND THE WORLD: “What bothered me most, after The Slap Seen Around the World, was how the giants of Black Hollywood immediately circled to protect Will Smith...Will anyone famous who stood and applauded Smith after his acceptance speech be asked to explain their actions? Will the Academy or Oscarcast producers explain why they allowed someone to hit a performer — a friend sent me a text joking that Ricky Gervais is lucky he’s not still hosting the Golden Globes — and then collect an award?”                     Eric Deggans        NPR TV critic and author        Deggans named actor Will Smith’s controversial public assault on comedian Chris Rock “The Slap Seen Around the World” in a post on the NPR website the day after actor Smith’s gave an open-handed sucker punch to Chris Rock at the March 27, 2022 Academy Awards. The words Smith yelled at Rock after the slap are at least a temporarily famous quotation: “Keep my wife's name out your f***ing mouth!”

THE CELEBRITY “NEWS” VARIATION: “The divorce heard round the world.”        Perez Hilton        American celebrity news blogger and “television personality”        This was Hilton’s description of “reality star” Kim Kardashian’s 2013 divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries. The divorce came just ten weeks after their obscenely lavish, apparently made-for-TV wedding brought joy to the hearts of millions of celebrity-obsessed people—and to the pocketbooks of TV shows and tabloid magazines and websites that cover such stuff, like Hilton’s site.

THE BRAIN FART VARIATION:         “The brain fart heard round the world.”        Jon Stewart        American comedian and host of The Daily Show        Stewart’s description, in a November 2011 episode The Daily Show, of Rick Perry’s “oops moment” during the November 9, 2011 Republican presidential candidate debate, when Perry said he would abolish three federal agencies if elected but was unable to name all three. Some commentators called it “the oops moment heard round the world.”

AN OLDER POLITICAL VARIATION: “The blooper heard round the world.”        TIME magazine’s, October 18, 1976        This was the headline of a TIME article about the huge gaffe made by President Gerald Ford during the October 6, 1976 presidential debate with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter. During a part of the debate about the Soviet Union, Ford claimed “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” In fact, the Soviet Union clearly dominated a number of countries in Eastern Europe at the time, including East Germany, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Poland. The remark made Ford seem clueless about international politics. He later admitted he’d misspoken. Carter won the election.

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“Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’…”

THE ACTUAL ORIGINAL QUOTE: “When I hear ‘culture’...I unlock my Browning!.” (“Wenn ich Kultur höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning!”)                          Hanns Johst (1890-1978)        German playwright and Nazi SS officer          The commonly misquoted, misattributed line from Johst’s 1933 play Schlageter        This line from Schlageter, Johst’s patriotic homage to the German World War I “martyr” Albert Leo Schlageter, is most widely-known in misquoted paraphrase form, as “When [or Whenever] ever I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.” The literal translation of the German words “Wenn ich Kultur höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning” is: “When I hear culture...I unlock my Browning.” The ellipsis in the sentence (...) is a pause written into the text by Johst, not an indication of missing text. Most English translations incorrectly use the word whenever in place of when and insert word before culture. In German, Wenn actually means when and wann immer means whenever. Since a Browning is a pistol and the word entsichere (unlock) refers to a gun’s safety catch, the line has also been translated as: “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I release the safety on my pistol!” Sometimes the word revolver is used in place of Browning or pistol. Versions of Johst’s original line have been attributed to Nazi leader Hermann Göring and occasionally to other Nazi officials, such as Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels. These and other top Nazis were indeed fans of the play Schlageter and apparently did quote Johst’s line. But Johst deserves the real credit — or blame — for the origin.

AN ANTI-FOODIE APPLICATION:               “When I hear the words ‘healthy eating,’ I reach for my pork chop.”        Dick Stein                        Jazz show host on Seattle radio station KNKX/KPLU        In a comment on the KPLU website in June 2014

A TECH NERD’S VIEW OF FASHION: “When I hear the word couture, I reach for my cyanide pill.”        A quip posted on the now defunct TechEye.com site

HENRY MILLER’S GENIUS VARIATION: “When I hear the word Culture I reach for my revolver. Remember that? So, too, when I hear the word Genius.”        Henry Miller (1891-1980)        American novelist and painter        In Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

GROUCHO’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I reach for my wallet!”        Attributed to Groucho Marx        American comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television performer        Attributed to Groucho in Urban History: Volume 22 (1995), published by Cambridge University Press

THE POSTMODERN VARIATION: “When I hear the word ‘postmodern’ I reach for the remote control. I want to change channels immediately, before I get instantaneously and totally bored.”        McKenzie Wark        Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at The New School in New York City        In his book Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events (1994)

THE PUKE BOWL VARIATION: “When I hear the word nobility I reach for the puke bowl.”        Maeve Kelly         Irish novelist, short-story writer and poet        Said by a character in Kelly’s novel Necessary Treasons (1985)

A WINE LOVER’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I don’t reach for an Uzi, I reach for a corkscrew and a bottle of venerable and well chilled sauterne. Viniculture. Noble rot, mutating nobler by the minute.”        Glenn O’Brien        American journalist        In an article included in his book Soapbox: Essays, Diatribes, Homilies and Screeds (1997)

A PRODUCER’S VIEW OF GOVERNMENT: “It is unlikely that the government reaches for a revolver when it hears the word culture. The more likely response is to search for a dictionary.”         David Glencross (1936-2007)        Television executive and producer for Britain’s ITV        Comment at the Royal Television Society conference on the future of television in November 1988        Quoted in the Oxford Essential Quotations Dictionary (1998)

A LOVE HATER’S VERSION: “When I hear the word love, I reach for my revolver.”        Gore Vidal (1925-2012)        American-born novelist, screenwriter and playwright        Quoted in the book S and M, Studies in Sadomasochism (1983), edited by Thomas S. Weinberg and G. W. Levi Kamel

QUIRKY, EDGY, INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER’S QUOTE: “‘Independent.’ I’m so sick of that word. I reach for my revolver when I hear the word ‘quirky.’ Or ‘edgy.’ Those words are now becoming labels that are slapped on products to sell them. Anyone who makes a film that is the film they want to make, and it is not defined by marketing analysis or a commercial enterprise, is independent.”        Jim Jarmusch        American movie director, producer, screenwriter and actor        Quoted in the “Personal Quotes” section of his bio on IMDB.com

STEPHEN HAWKING’S CAT QUIP: “When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my pistol.”        Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)        British theoretical physicist and cosmologist        A favorite Hawking quip that’s often mentioned in articles about him. It refers to Erwin Schrödinger’s famed “thought experiment” about a cat that is simultaneous dead and alive. The “Schrödinger’s cat” paradox highlights a problem inherent in certain aspects of quantum theory.

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“I have seen the future and it works.” (But not in the future.)

LINCOLN STEFFENS’ FAMOUS QUOTE ABOUT THE FUTURE: “I have seen the future and it works.”        Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936)         American “muckraking” journalist and social activist         Remark in a letter to Marie Howe, dated April 3, 1919, about his visit to Soviet Russia. Russia had recently become the first major Communist nation, adopting a political system based (theoretically) on the doctrines of Karl Marx. At the time, many liberal activists like Steffens believed that such a Socialist system would be good for the majority of citizens and should be adopted by other countries.        Steffens used several versions of his famous controversial prediction over the years. One of the most cited variations comes from his 1931 autobiography. In that, Steffens wrote that American businessman Bernard Baruch once said to him, “So you’ve been over into Russia?, and he replied: “I have been over into the future and it works.” Steffens also noted in his autobiography that, by the time he wrote it, he had become disillusioned with Communism.

THE AMAZON WAREHOUSE SLAVE VERSION:              “Amazon’s new idea goes to extremes to treat employees like fleshy robots. The Seattle-based company was just granted two patents for employee wristbands that look like something from dystopian science fiction...wristbands that track where a given warehouse workers’ hands are at all times. You read that correctly. I have seen the future, and it’s just rows and rows of low-paid workers in endless warehouses being told to stop picking their noses. Or to get back from their bathroom break, as it were.”        Matt Novak        Editor of Gizmodo's Paleofuture blog        In a blog post on January 31, 2018

GRUMPY CAT'S UNDERSTANDABLE VIEW: “I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE. I'M GOING BACK TO BED.”         A classic Grumpy Cat meme

THE DYSTOPIAN FUTURE MOVIE COUNTERQUOTE: “I have seen the future and it doesn’t work.”        Zardoz (1974 film)        Tagline used as sequential words on screen in the trailer for this campy science fiction movie, starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling.

THE SADLY TRUE MOVIE POSTER VERSION: “I have seen the future, and it sucks...Movie posters suck these days. They’re going to suck even more tomorrow. And as we shuck and jive (and text and Facebook) ever onward into the digital future, movie posters will just keep doggedly and willfully sucking all the more. It’s a headlong progression of suckage, a symptom of the mass-produced everything-by-committee mindset of our culture.”        Frank Darabont        Hungarian-born American movie director, producer and screenwriter        Comments in the introduction he wrote for the book The Art of Drew Struzan, a lushly illustrated book about the man Time magazine called "the Last Movie Poster Artist."

THE PROPHET PARODY COUNTERQUOTE: “I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.”        The Profit by “Kehlog Albran”          This 1973 book, actually written by Martin A. Cohen and Sheldon Shacket, is a spoof of Khalil Gibran’s popular mystical philosophy book The Prophet (1923).

THE SCARILY-PRESCIENT INTERNET PROPHECY: “I have seen the future of the web and it looks like bad public access television.”        Robert P. Libbon        American writer and “Director of Covert Activities” for the magicians Penn and Teller          A quip his computer book parody Byte Me! Computing for the Terminally Frustrated (1996)

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A government — and a nation — of laws…

A FOUNDING FATHER’S FAMOUS USES: “A government of laws and not of men.”        John Adams (1735-1826)         American lawyer, politician and 2nd President of the United States        Although the basic concept of “a government of laws, and not of men” reflects a political philosophy dating back to the ancient Greeks, Adams gave it lasting fame in those exact words, initially by using it in his 7th “Novanglus” letter published in the Boston Gazette in 1775, then more famously by including it in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.       The “Novanglus Letters” were a series of essays Adams wrote for the Boston Gazette under the pseudonym Novanglus (meaning “New Englander”). In them, he argued that Great Britain’s treatment of American colonists violated their rights under British law.        In the seventh Novanglus letter, Adams said:        “If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more nor less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.”         Five years later after he wrote the Novanglus letters, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. Adams was primary author of that historic document. In it, he again used the phrase “a government of laws and not of men.” In the section outlining the crucial principle of the separation of powers, he wrote:        “In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”         “A government of laws” and the variation “a nation of laws” came to be commonly used in commentaries on legal issues, political disputes and court decisions. They are sometimes used almost simultaneously by people on both sides of such issues, who believe their interpretation of the law is the correct one — often regardless of what the courts decide.

TRUMP TRAVEL BAN QUOTE #1 (BEFORE THE APPEALS COURT DECISION): “We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws.  As a sovereign country, America has the right to control its border.”        Sen. John Neely Kennedy         Republican politician now serving as U.S. Senator for Louisiana        In a press statement he released on January 30, 2016 in support of President Donald Trump’s travel ban executive order. The order, designed to bar the entry of travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations into the U.S., was soon blocked by a federal judge whose decision was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.         Presumably, Sen. Kennedy respects that outcome as an example of how the separation of powers works in our nation of laws. (But somehow I doubt it.)

TRUMP TRAVEL BAN QUOTE #2 (AFTER THE APPEALS COURT DECISION): “We are a nation of laws. And, as I have said, as we have said, from day one, that those laws apply to everybody in our country, and that includes the President of the United States.”       Bob Ferguson       Washington State Attorney General       In a press conference on February 9, 2017 after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the state’s favor in a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s “travel ban” executive order. As I write this, it’s unclear whether President Trump will appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.        It also remains to be seen whether supporters or opponents of the ban will be happily (or grumpily) using “a nation of laws” when the legal dust finally settles.

NIXON APPLICATION #1: “Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.”       Archibald Cox (1912-2004)       American lawyer and law professor who served as a Special Prosecutor during the investigation of the Watergate scandal       Comment to the press on October 20, 1973 after President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox from his Special Prosecutor position for zealously pursuing access to the then still-secret Watergate Tapes.        Richardson refused to fire Cox and resigned in protest. Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also refused to carry out the president’s order and resigned. Nixon then succeeded in getting Robert Bork, who’d been tapped as acting head of the Justice Department, to fire Cox on Saturday, October 20, 1973.        This so-called “The Saturday Night Massacre” didn’t help Nixon. It simply generated negative press, public outrage and even more intense Congressional investigations. Ultimately, Nixon was forced to release the tapes. On August 9, 1974, he became the first American president to resign, knowing he’d be impeached if he didn’t.

NIXON APPLICATION #2: “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”         Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006)        American politician who served as 38th President of the United States        Lines from his speech on August 9, 1974, the day he ascended from being Richard Nixon’s Vice President to be inaugurated as President of the United States after Nixon resigned.        One month later, President Ford gave Nixon a “full, free and absolute pardon” for any crimes he committed while president. Whether “the people” agreed with that decision didn’t matter. In our nation of laws, the president has the legal power to grant such pardons under the powers given to him by the U.S. Constitution.

CYNICAL VARIATION #1: “In our obsessive effort to perfect a government of laws, not of men, we have invented a government of laws against men.”        Philip K. Howard (b. 1948)        American lawyer and conservative political commentator and author         A quote from his 1994 book The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America        In the book, Howard argues that the increasing number of laws and regulations in the United States have reached a point of absurdity that stifles our economy, personal freedom and our quality of life.

CYNICAL VARIATION #2: “The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”        Frank Zappa (1940-1993)        American rock musician, provocateur and entrepreneur             A famous quotation widely attributed to Zappa, though it’s unclear if and when he said it         On his excellent Big Apple language history site, Barry Popik notes that in a 1992 interview journalist Jon Winokur reminded Zappa that he “once said” the line.       Zappa didn’t actually confirm that he’d said those words in the interview. But the quote does seem consistent with his typically critical view of the American political and legal system.

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“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” (Or, as Franklin actually said: “Il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.”

THE FAMOUS WORDS FRANKLIN DIDN’T SAY (IN ENGLISH): “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.”        Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)         American “founding father,” publisher, diplomat and scientist         This is the usual English translation of a comment Franklin made in a letter he wrote to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy, dated November 13, 1789.        Franklin wrote his letter to Leroy in French. His “death and taxes” remark was related to the Constitution of the United States of America, which had been adopted two years earlier. What he actually wrote was:        “Notre constitution nouvelle est actuellement établie, tout paraît nous promettre qu’elle sera durable; mais, dans ce monde, il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.”        The common English translation of this sentence is: “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”  (Sometimes the last part is translated as “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”)        As noted by the invaluable Phrase Finder site and other reference sources, similar quotations about death and taxes pre-date Franklin’s letter. But the English translation of Franklin’s version is certainly the most famous. (For more background see this post on my ThisDayinQuotes.com blog.)

THE DONALD TRUMP UPDATE: “With Donald Trump as President almost nothing is certain except uncertainty itself.”        David C. Kibbe        President and CEO of the non-profit healthcare information technology organization DirectTrust         A remark quoted in a January 9, 2017 press release discussing health industry IT trends that seems applicable to more than health industry IT trends.        (Cartoon by Dan Wasserman.)

THE UNCERTAIN WILL ROGERS QUOTE:   “The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”        Attrib. to Will Rogers (1879-1935)        American humorist        A quip widely attributed to Rogers, but without any specific source        There’s no contemporary record of Rogers uttering or writing this old joke. However, quote maven Barry Popik has noted that a similar line was used by another humorist Rogers had a connection with, the witty newspaper columnist Robert Quillen (1887-1948).        In several of the humorous columns Quillen wrote in the early 1930s, he said the “difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the legislature meets.” In a 1934 column, Quillen added Congress, saying: “The main difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get any worse every time congress or the state legislature meets.” That same year, movie producer George Marshall and screenwriter Lamar Trotti visited Quillen and purportedly used him as the model for the newspaper editor Will Rogers played in the film Life Begins at Forty. The film’s credits credit Quillen for “contributing dialogue.” My guess is that, if Rogers ever did use the line about Congress, he may have borrowed it from Quillen.

SCARLET O’HARA’S BABY BIRTHIN’ VERSION: “Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them!”        Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)        American novelist, journalist and philanthropist          This is what the character Scarlett O’Hara says about the “untimeliness” of her pregnancy, in Chapter 38 of Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.         The line was not used in the classic 1939 movie adaptation, in which actress Vivien Leigh played Scarlet. But if it had been, I imagine her adding one of her favorite sayings: “Fiddle-dee-dee!”

SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT YOUR DOCTOR TO SAY: “In life only one thing is certain, besides death and taxes...No matter how hard we try, No matter how good our intentions, we are going to make mistakes.”        Dr. Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo)        In the “Heart of the Matter” episode of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy (Season 4, Episode 4, first aired Oct. 18, 2007)

A GOLF ADDICT’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Ben Franklin was wrong. There is more certainty in life than just death and taxes. There is also the very reliable need for ‘just one more’ piece of golf equipment.”        Dorothy Langley        American author and golfer        In her book A View from the Red Tees: The Truth About Women and Golf (1997)

THE 20TH CENTURY OUTLOOK: “To the typical American on the eve of the twentieth century it appeared a unique country, a land of promise where one person's gain was another person’s opportunity, and the inevitable was not just death and taxes but improvement and growth.”        Richard M. Abrams        Historian and Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley        An observation in his book The Burdens of Progress, 1900-1929 (1978)

THE 21ST CENTURY OUTLOOK: “Besides death and  taxes, this too is certain: The American economy will never return to its  maximum prosperity until it completes a very broad-based tax reform.”         Economists Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro        In their book Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity (2010)

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