Re: Blood and treasure

Earlier, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > So if "b, s & t" had been floating around before Churchill made his
> > speech, then it would make sense if Churchill's quote was modified
> > as it circulated to correspond with a preexisting expression.

And I (Mark Brader) wrote:
> Fascinating. This makes me wonder if Churchill wrote the line "blood,
> toil, tears, and sweat" by starting with the earlier expression and
> constructing a rebalanced version.

Well, this thread and the other one about "up with which I will not
put" led me to browsing the web site <http://www.winstonchurchill.org>
of the Churchill Centre, and I've had an exchange of email with their
editor, Richard M. Langworth, about both topics.

It turns out that he had written a short article on this exact subject
just this year for the Centre's quarterly, "Finest Hour". The article
was titled "'Bloor, Toil, Tears and Sweat': Evolution of a Phrase", and
he kindly forwarded me a copy of it.

And it seems I guessed right. In fact Churchill not only knew the
earlier expression, *he had used it himself*, earlier than the 1939
example that Ben cited where someone else used it. (Although not
earlier than the 1846 example!)

And what's more, even before *that*, he had used a two-term version.
This was in 1899: "As for the result, that, as I think Mr. Grobelaar
knows, is only a question of time and money expressed in terms of
blood and tears." He used the same phrase in 1900, again referring
to the Boer War, in suggesting that by promoting the right officers,
"...there will be less blood and tears when the next war comes."
He used this version of the phrase again in June 1939, referring
to the coming war.

In 1931 he added sweat to the formula, but in this wording: "Their
sweat, their tears, their blood bedewed the endless plain." This
time the subject is WW1.

And in February 1939 he used "blood, sweat and tears". Referring
to the Spanish Civil War, he wrote: "But here are new structures of
national life erected upon blood, sweat and tears, which are not
dissimilar and therefore capable of being united."

As for toil, he used that in a similar expression in 1936. Except
for the profiteers, he said, "war spells nothing but toil, waste,
sorrow and torment to the vast mass of ordinary folk in every land."

And in 1940 he put it all together: "blood, toil, tears and sweat".


So I was wrong to suggest that his American publishers, in using the
title "Blood, Sweat, and Tears", were promulgating a misquote --
they could have found the words in an article Churchill wrote during
the time period of the speeches in the book.

As to that title, Richard Langworth also forwarded me an excerpt
from his book "A Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston
Churchill", listing all the different editions of the book.

The title "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" (spelled with various numbers
of commas) was used for Canadian as well as American editions,
but never in for British ones. Ironically, the first Canadian
edition -- the most expensively produced of all -- actually omits
the "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech. Anyway, it does seem
likely to me that the phrase gained popularity more from this book
than from anything else.

The British title "Into Battle" -- also used for an edition
published in China -- is the title of this WW1 poem:
<http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/mia_intobattle.htm>.
An excerpt from the poem was added to the book after the first
few printings.

Two other titles used for the book have been "Their Finest Hour"
(an abridged 1941 Canadian edition) and "Churchill in His Own
Words" (1966, British and American).
--
Mark Brader "People with whole brains, however, dispute
Toronto this claim, and are generally more articulate
msb@xxxxxxx in expressing their views." -- Gary Larson

My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

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