Say What? A good beginning makes a good ending/All good things must come to an end
In this week's installment of "Say What?" the sayings we're examining discuss things that are good at both the beginning and the end, though we all hope that ending isn't too close. The examples this week are from The Avengers.
A good beginning makes a good ending
Our first proverb is fairly self explanatory: it suggests that if you want something to end well, you need to begin it well. Starting something in a half-hearted manner is unlikely to return a high quality result. This parallels the thought that you get out of something what you put into it, which is obviously a view people have been taking for a while. This is because the first recorded usage is in South English Legendary from 1300, which reads:
This was atte uerste me thingth [it seems to me] a god bygynnynge. There after was the betere hope to come to god endynge.
By the time the eighteenth century had arrived, the proverb was recorded in a much more modern form by S. Palmer's Proverbs from 1710:
A good Beginning makes a good End ... 'Tis a great point of Wisdom ... to begin at the right end.
An example making use of the saying is:
Tony looked on in horror as Thor carried two massive steins of Asgardian mead to the table.
"Drink up, my friend," Thor exclaimed as he slammed the steins down. "Do you not say that a good beginning makes a good end?"
All good things must come to an end
The second proverb has a somewhat more negative tone because it indicates that everything good will eventually end. However, the inclusion of 'good' as part of the saying is only a relatively recent development, and earlier forms can be compared with 'EVERYTHING has an end'. In fact, the first recorded usage is from the 1440 work Partonope of Blois, which includes:
Ye wrote [know] wele of all thing moste be an ende.
By 1562 in G. Legh's Accidence of Armoury, the saying had changed to be:
All worldly thinges haue an ende (excepte the housholde wordes, betwene man and wife).
In Jonathan Swift's Polite Conversation fromn 1738, he states:
All Things have an End, and a Pudden [a kind of sausage] has two.
It wasn't until the 1924 work The Scar by Derek Vane that the proverb reached its modern form:
All good things come to an end. The feast was over.
Using this in any sort of fiction is straight forward. For example:
Thor stared at the destruction caused by the most recent alien attack averted by The Avengers, waiting to see if any bodies were still moving. Seeing nothing, he shrugged and turned to Captain America. "All good things must come to an end."
And that wraps up our post for this week. Make sure that when you're doing your own writing, you make a good start so that you can deliver that good ending. And please do bring that story to an end, because nobody likes a WIP that is abandoned. ;^)
Sources
Simpson, John and Speake, Jennifer. A Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2008.
A good beginning makes a good ending
Our first proverb is fairly self explanatory: it suggests that if you want something to end well, you need to begin it well. Starting something in a half-hearted manner is unlikely to return a high quality result. This parallels the thought that you get out of something what you put into it, which is obviously a view people have been taking for a while. This is because the first recorded usage is in South English Legendary from 1300, which reads:
This was atte uerste me thingth [it seems to me] a god bygynnynge. There after was the betere hope to come to god endynge.
By the time the eighteenth century had arrived, the proverb was recorded in a much more modern form by S. Palmer's Proverbs from 1710:
A good Beginning makes a good End ... 'Tis a great point of Wisdom ... to begin at the right end.
An example making use of the saying is:
Tony looked on in horror as Thor carried two massive steins of Asgardian mead to the table.
"Drink up, my friend," Thor exclaimed as he slammed the steins down. "Do you not say that a good beginning makes a good end?"
All good things must come to an end
The second proverb has a somewhat more negative tone because it indicates that everything good will eventually end. However, the inclusion of 'good' as part of the saying is only a relatively recent development, and earlier forms can be compared with 'EVERYTHING has an end'. In fact, the first recorded usage is from the 1440 work Partonope of Blois, which includes:
Ye wrote [know] wele of all thing moste be an ende.
By 1562 in G. Legh's Accidence of Armoury, the saying had changed to be:
All worldly thinges haue an ende (excepte the housholde wordes, betwene man and wife).
In Jonathan Swift's Polite Conversation fromn 1738, he states:
All Things have an End, and a Pudden [a kind of sausage] has two.
It wasn't until the 1924 work The Scar by Derek Vane that the proverb reached its modern form:
All good things come to an end. The feast was over.
Using this in any sort of fiction is straight forward. For example:
Thor stared at the destruction caused by the most recent alien attack averted by The Avengers, waiting to see if any bodies were still moving. Seeing nothing, he shrugged and turned to Captain America. "All good things must come to an end."
And that wraps up our post for this week. Make sure that when you're doing your own writing, you make a good start so that you can deliver that good ending. And please do bring that story to an end, because nobody likes a WIP that is abandoned. ;^)
Sources
Simpson, John and Speake, Jennifer. A Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2008.