Re: Interesting Times

[Ed Hopkins <Ed.Hopkins@mci.com>]

Poster: Ed Hopkins <Ed.Hopkins@mci.com>

> Does anyone konw the origin of the saying
> 
> May you live in interesting times
> 
> Is it oriental in origin or anglo-saxon?
> I do not know at all and I was hoping that someone here might know;)

I found the following in the North of Boston Library Exchange
at www.noble.mass.edu/ref/inter.htm

  In a speech in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 7, 1966, Robert F.
  Kennedy said, "There is a Chinese curse which says, "May he live in
  interesting times." Like it or not, we live in interesting
  times..." Journalists picked up the phrase and it has become a
  commonplace.

  However, the popularity of this "Chinese curse" puzzles Chinese
  scholars, who have only heard it from Americans. If it is of
  Chinese origin, it has somehow escaped the literature, although it
  may be a paraphrase of a liberal translation from a Chinese source,
  and therefore unrecognizable when translated back to Chinese. It
  might be related to the Chinese proverb, "It's better to be a dog
  in a peaceful time that be a man in a chaotic period."

You can read a long "sidebar" about the search for the origin of
the phrase at http://hawk.fab2.albany.edu/delong/netimes.htm#Sidebar
which mentions a extended form that adds "...and attract the attention
of important people".  About the curse in general, the sidebar says,
in part:

  [...] The Book of Insults by Nancy McPhee (St. Martin's Press,
  1978) [...] asserted that the curse was really Scottish, not
  Chinese, and that it was merely old, not ancient. But she gave no
  source [...] Nancy McPhee indeed replied by e-mail to my importuning:
      My "Insults" books were a long time ago, and my source
      material languishes in some long-buried file box. . . .
      I fear the whole thing is going to be anticlimactic,
      since I rather doubt I can shed much light on your
      query about "interesting" or "important" times. But
      I'll do what I can.
  [...]

I hope this helps.

-- Alfredo

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