Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 September 15

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September 15

Mad dogs and Englishmen...

... go out in the mid-day sun, as we are told. Our article says "The saying "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" is often asserted to have been coined by Rudyard Kipling but no precise source is ever cited". The song came out in 1931. In the 1911 short story "Amid the Trees" by Francis Xavier we read "only an Englishman or a dog walks in the mid-day sun, runs the proverb". So, are there any earlier incarnations of the proverb? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 19:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

In Reminiscences of the Late Thomas Barker, an 1862 paper by Frederick Shum, we have mention of "the Italian saying that 'none but Englishmen and dogs would be seen abroad in the mid-day sun'." In a para called "An Italian Midday" in the 19 May 1838 issue of The New-Yorker (not that one) there seems to be an allusion to the same saying: "There is something to an English eye very singular in the appearance of a southern city at these hours. The closed shops, the deserted streets, closed and deserted under the very mid-day sun, make it look like a city of the dead. Dogs and Englishmen, they say, are alone stirring." --Antiquary (talk) 20:14, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

And the website Phrase Finder traces it back to Charles Burney, who in 1770 wrote, "He certainly over-heated himself at Venice by walking at a season when it is said that only Dogs and Englishmen are seen out of doors at noon, all else lie down in the middle of the day." --Antiquary (talk) 20:31, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: According to The Yale Book of Quotations, “An earlier version found for this book is, “It is a common saying at Rome, ‘None but dogs, ideots, and Frenchmen walk the streets in day-time”’ (John George Keysler, Travels Through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lorrain [1757]).” John M Baker (talk) 21:42, 22 September 2024 (UTC)