Wolfgang Mieder’s “«Laissez faire à Georges» and «Let George do it»: A Case of Paremiological Polygenesis” (Paremia 22 [2013]:17-29) is an astonishing example of coincidence, the kind of thing that should be kept at the tip of one’s brain to confute those who take resemblance for proof of origin. The abstract:
While polygenesis appears to be a rare phenomenon with proverbs, the French proverb «Laissez faire à Georges» from the end of the fifteenth century and the American proverb «Let George do it» from the last quarter of the nineteenth century do in fact have two different origins. This is shown by numerous references from French and Anglo-American proverb collections and dictionaries. Even though some paremiographers and lexicographers continue to insist on a monogenetic relationship between the two proverbs, the argument for two separate origins has steadily gained acceptance. The two «Georges» of the proverbs have no relationship to each other, and it would have made little sense for the old French idiom with its relationship to Georges d’Amboise to have been adopted by the Anglo-American world. Clearly the American proverb is based on another George, namely the generic name given to emancipated slaves who were employed as African American porters on the Pullman railroad cars during the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond. While the French proverb has long been out of use, the American proverb is still in use today.
Anatoly Vorobey, from whom I got the link, compares the Russian use of Pushkin as the universal doer, and confesses that he only just learned that the English noun saw ‘saying, proverb’ has nothing to do with the homophonous noun meaning ‘tool with a toothed blade’ but is related to the verb say (it is, in fact, a doublet of saga).
Old saws with new teeth. In genetics this is called convergent evolution, as I have understood it.
Anatoly Vorobey, from whom I got the link, compares the Russian use of Pushkin as the universal doer, and confesses that he only just learned that the English noun saw ‘saying, proverb’ has nothing to do with the homophonous noun meaning ‘tool with a toothed blade’ but is related to the verb say (it is, in fact, a doublet of saga).
From now on I’ll bore people with that fact every time they pull out an old saw, and then insist on calling them “old sagas”.
The “monogenesis” idea may be a misunderstanding of the fact that George(s) is/was a common name.
A guy who lives in a garret of my apartment building rejoices in the name of Marspet Movsisyan. I know this from all the packages delivered for him that DHL leaves in the stairwell, and now from checking the names on the mailboxes. I thought: I have no idea what the origins of that name might be. And immediately found Marspet Movsisyan in the ‘net.
Coincidence ? Monogenesis ? I think I’ve seen him in the building, but didn’t look closely because he seemed to be skittish. At any rate not scrumptious, more scrawny and homely.
I am a bit skeptical that a new American idiom/proverb arising from the specific circumstances of Pullman cars and their porters no earlier than probably the 1870’s would have popped up in use in London by the mid-1880’s. Two related points:
1. Note the valiant-if-jocular historical efforts of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_Prevention_of_Calling_Sleeping_Car_Porters_%22George%22.
2. By the late Seventies I was familiar, via radio play, with Steve Goodman’s song “City of New Orleans,” probably in Arlo Guthrie’s 1972 hit version. It has a lovely bit in the second verse that goes “And the sons of Pullman porters / And the sons of engineers / Ride their fathers’ magic carpet made of steel.” I at that point in my life lacked the historical knowledge that would have been obvious to listeners with personal memories of pre-Amtrak train travel that the sons of the porters would have all been black men and the sons of the engineers all white men, although all getting along harmoniously enough by the time in which the song was set (playing cards in the club car w/o keeping very good score and passing around a bottle in a paper bag).