[lit-ideas] Re: "Honesty Is The Best Policy"
- From: Harold Hungerford <hh@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 20:38:16 -0700
Try the OED; and notice the 1599 citation. The OED is notoriously weak=20=
on the seventeenth century, but my impression from reading a lot of=20
seventeenth-century poetry is that "policy" usually has the bad sense.=20=
And without starting another hare, I associate "less in more" with Mies=20=
van der Rohe and the Bauhaus generally.
Harold Hungerford
Santa Rosa, California
4. a. In reference to conduct or action generally: Prudent, expedient,=20=
or advantageous procedure; prudent or politic course of action; also,=20
as a quality of the agent: sagacity, shrewdness, artfulness; in bad=20
sense, cunning, craftiness, dissimulation
1430 Lydg. in Pol., Rel. & L. Poems 15, I Counselle,..Off polycye,=20
forsight, and prudence.
1477 Sir J. Paston in P. Lett. III. 187 It weer not polesy for me to=20
sett that maner in suche case for alle maner of happis.
1533 More Debell. Salem v. Wks. 941/2, I wyl peraduenture..here=20
after..vse the same circumspeccion & polycye that I learne of his=20
ensample here.
1587 Mirr. Mag., Malin x, Secretly by pollecy and sleight Hee slewe mee=20=
with his swoord, before I wist.
1599 Sandys Europ<ae> Spec. (1632) 102 Our grosse conceipts, who think=20=
honestie the best policie.
1604 Drayton Owle 419 In this base Bird I might well descry, The=20
prosperous fruit of thriving Policy.
1752 Fielding Amelia ix. ix, Tom, Tom, thou hast no policy in thee.
1791 Burke Corr. (1844) III. 255 Have they no way of convincing=20
this..illustrious person,..that her only policy is silence, patience,=20
and refusal?
1868 Helps Realmah iv. (1876) 56 If this is policy, then are the ways=20
of children politic.
1883 Law Times 20 Oct. 409/2 The policy of allowing this sweeping right=20=
of appeal was doubted by many.
b. A device, expedient, contrivance; a crafty device, stratagem, trick.=20=
Obs.
1406 Hoccleve La male regle 252 Whan <Th>at Vlixes saillid to and fro=20
By meermaides this was his policie, Alle eres of men of his compaignie=20=
With wex he stoppe leet.
1489 Caxton Faytes of A. ii. xxxv. 152 The besegers haue commonly one=20
manere of a polycye.
1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Acts xxvii. 87 They used other policies to=20=
preserue the shyp.
1640 Yorke Union Hon., Battells 18 By policy of these Iron stakes=20
against the English horse, King Edward<cq>s battell was discomfited.
1678 Worlidge Bees (1691) 23 A swarm [of bees] drawn from one place to=20=
another by stales, baits, calls, or such like policies.
1849 Hare Par. Serm. II. 194 When a man is sharpening his policies he=20
will grind them away to nothing.=00
On Oct 13, 2004, at 6:06 PM, Robert Paul wrote:
Who said, 'Less is more?'
Robert Paul
The Muttonworks
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