Say What: The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley. / There's nowt so queer as folk.
Both of our sayings today are British in origin. Luckily, Blair from The Sentinel is an anthropologist and has travelled widely, so he can give us some help.
'The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley' is a line from Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse', written in 1785; it's sometimes misquoted as 'The best-laid plans of mice and men'.
A lot of people aren't really going to understand the last three words, although they probably get the gist. This shows from the number of times you hear this quoted simply as 'The best-laid schemes of mice and men... '. In 1937 John Steinbeck used 'Of Mice and Men' as the title of one of his books, which was also made into a film. Sydney Sheldon is another writer who leaned on the line for the title of his 1997 novel 'The Best Laid Plans'.
'Gang aft' simply means 'often go' (literally, 'go often') while 'agley' is usually translated as 'awry'. For someone who speaks even a little broad Scots, however, it's really slightly more than that, though there isn't another one word definition that comes close. Broad Scots, in which Burns often wrote, isn't (as many people assume) carelessly spoken English; it's a language in its own right with its own vocabulary and turns of phrase. Both Broad Scots and English derive from the language of the Angles, who settled in Britain around 600 AD.
In the poem, a ploughman (Burns) has accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest. It's winter; the mouse had thought to be safe and warm in this nest which is now destroyed, and there's nothing available for the animal to build a new one. Its plans for the winter have gone 'agley' - they've failed. The ploughman reflects that he too has had plans go wrong, but feels that the mouse is the luckier one because it lives in the present; the ploughman can remember the woes of the past and can also consider - and dread - the future.
They had left early to get to their campsite early - and an accident had closed the road.
Blair shrugged resignedly. "The best laid schemes of mice and men..." he said.
Simon frowned. "Mice?" He sounded puzzled. "I thought it was 'The best laid plans...' you say when something like this happens. It's the title of a book."
"It's actually a line from a poem about a mouse," Blair said.
"And if you're not careful," Jim interjected, "he'll recite it to you."
People often use the quotation surprisingly facilely, almost light-heartedly, considering how downbeat the actual poem is.
There's nowt so queer as folk.
This is a north of England saying, that has been narrowed down to coming from Yorkshire. It means that people sometimes behave in a very strange way. The oldest written reference dates from 1905, though that doesn't mean it wasn't around for a long time before that.
A variant is 'All the world's queer save thee and me - and even thee's a little queer.' For 'queer' read 'strange' - the original meaning of the word. This comment is known to have been made in 1828 by Robert Owen, a philanthropic factory owner, when he was speaking to one of his partners.
Owen was himself 'strange' (for his era) because he believed in the importance of education for all. He provided schooling, not only for the children of his workers, but for the workers themselves.
"What does 'nowt' mean?" Jim asked.
Blair glanced up from his book. "Nothing."
Jim shook his head. "That doesn't make sense."
"What's the context?"
"It was something the witness I was speaking to this afternoon said. 'There's nowt so queer as folk.' Does that mean he thought everyone was gay?"
"No," Blair said. "He meant 'strange' - and you have to admit, a lot of people are strange!"
Basically, both variants mean that we're all individuals. Even when we have a hobby that to us is enthralling, and can easily understand that other people have hobbies, we don't necessarily understand what it is about that hobby that someone can possibly find so fascinating... while that other person can't understand what we find so fascinating about our hobby.
To a Mouse
Scots
English
Nowt so queer
'The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley' is a line from Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse', written in 1785; it's sometimes misquoted as 'The best-laid plans of mice and men'.
A lot of people aren't really going to understand the last three words, although they probably get the gist. This shows from the number of times you hear this quoted simply as 'The best-laid schemes of mice and men... '. In 1937 John Steinbeck used 'Of Mice and Men' as the title of one of his books, which was also made into a film. Sydney Sheldon is another writer who leaned on the line for the title of his 1997 novel 'The Best Laid Plans'.
'Gang aft' simply means 'often go' (literally, 'go often') while 'agley' is usually translated as 'awry'. For someone who speaks even a little broad Scots, however, it's really slightly more than that, though there isn't another one word definition that comes close. Broad Scots, in which Burns often wrote, isn't (as many people assume) carelessly spoken English; it's a language in its own right with its own vocabulary and turns of phrase. Both Broad Scots and English derive from the language of the Angles, who settled in Britain around 600 AD.
In the poem, a ploughman (Burns) has accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest. It's winter; the mouse had thought to be safe and warm in this nest which is now destroyed, and there's nothing available for the animal to build a new one. Its plans for the winter have gone 'agley' - they've failed. The ploughman reflects that he too has had plans go wrong, but feels that the mouse is the luckier one because it lives in the present; the ploughman can remember the woes of the past and can also consider - and dread - the future.
They had left early to get to their campsite early - and an accident had closed the road.
Blair shrugged resignedly. "The best laid schemes of mice and men..." he said.
Simon frowned. "Mice?" He sounded puzzled. "I thought it was 'The best laid plans...' you say when something like this happens. It's the title of a book."
"It's actually a line from a poem about a mouse," Blair said.
"And if you're not careful," Jim interjected, "he'll recite it to you."
People often use the quotation surprisingly facilely, almost light-heartedly, considering how downbeat the actual poem is.
There's nowt so queer as folk.
This is a north of England saying, that has been narrowed down to coming from Yorkshire. It means that people sometimes behave in a very strange way. The oldest written reference dates from 1905, though that doesn't mean it wasn't around for a long time before that.
A variant is 'All the world's queer save thee and me - and even thee's a little queer.' For 'queer' read 'strange' - the original meaning of the word. This comment is known to have been made in 1828 by Robert Owen, a philanthropic factory owner, when he was speaking to one of his partners.
Owen was himself 'strange' (for his era) because he believed in the importance of education for all. He provided schooling, not only for the children of his workers, but for the workers themselves.
"What does 'nowt' mean?" Jim asked.
Blair glanced up from his book. "Nothing."
Jim shook his head. "That doesn't make sense."
"What's the context?"
"It was something the witness I was speaking to this afternoon said. 'There's nowt so queer as folk.' Does that mean he thought everyone was gay?"
"No," Blair said. "He meant 'strange' - and you have to admit, a lot of people are strange!"
Basically, both variants mean that we're all individuals. Even when we have a hobby that to us is enthralling, and can easily understand that other people have hobbies, we don't necessarily understand what it is about that hobby that someone can possibly find so fascinating... while that other person can't understand what we find so fascinating about our hobby.
To a Mouse
Scots
English
Nowt so queer