Unattributed quote? misquote?

[maradnu]

I hit the following as an unattributed quote:

"Water, water everywhere...but not a drop to drink "
— Unattributed

This is a misquotation from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

[smoochie222]

It could be right, it depends on who translated it. There are so many times that it says unattributed and I know who may have first said it

[maradnu]

Translate? Depends on how you define that.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was English and wrote "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in English, albeit sometimes archaic English.

Actually the 1798 version, according to one website, had the verse:

Water, water every where,
Ne any drop to drink.

Most versions will now render the "ne" as "nor".

The title from 1798 was rendered as: "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere".

[smoochie222]

It's like Bible versions.

[maradnu]

You do understand that the Bible was not written in English?

It was written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Bible indeed must be translated, and while there is a great deal of research and commentary to guide those translations, they are true translations from one language to another.

Coleridge, like Shakespeare, wrote in semi-modern English, sometimes using words that are no longer in common use in the present day. One may substitute the occasional modern word for the archaic one, but I would not think of that as a translation. Chaucer is a different matter, since he wrote in middle English and his word forms, words, etc are materially different from modern English.

[smoochie222]

You can now have the last word.

[cayot]

Today I came across the following:

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
- Unattributed

I realize this is not the complete bible verse (John 8:7, I think). Translations vary, but this seems a contracted version of a very well known verse.

[munchlet]

One may substitute the occasional modern word for the archaic one, but I would not think of that as a translation.

Maradnu,

Would you call it a paraphrase then?

Water, water everywhere... but not a drop to drink.

My grandmother often spoke these words, exactly as quoted above. Most likely she heard the expression in her youth (early 20th century).

So I think this unattributed version gained a life of its own, long ago, independent of its source.

Then again... I never knew the exact quotation or whence it came. Only the vernacular corruption.

Thank you!

Andrea

[maradnu]

Paraphrase is a fair description.

Being old enough to have studied Rime of the Ancient Mariner in school, I remembered the source.

[munchlet]

Being old enough to have studied Rime of the Ancient Mariner in school, I remembered the source.

Old enough, too, not to dangle your participles or misplace modifiers.

We must be a dying breed.

I learned grammar but somehow missed English lit.

If only I could have foreseen how memorizing literary classics would prove advantageous 40 years later while solving cryptograms...