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Clicked thru expecting it to be about "The Mending Wall" http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-me
by molotv 11y ago
Clicked thru expecting it to be about "The Mending Wall" http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html
"Good fences make good neighbors." is often misused to mean the opposite of what it does in that poem.
...at least I guessed the poet correctly.
- qq66 11y agoGuilty of using this phrase, even aware of the poem's meaning. I use it because it's an instantly recognized American phrase, and I do believe that good fences make good neighbors in many situations (e.g. File permissioning).
- e12e 11y agoBut isn't the use of the phrase in the poem a comment on the proverb/quote, not a source of the quote itself? http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/articles/who-said-good-fences-make-good-neighbors.html http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/articles/who-said-good-fenc...
- whoopdedo 11y agoBut Frost didn't invent that phrase. I hadn't read the poem since school, so I didn't consider it before. But looking at it again now I notice that the phrase is presented in an ironic way. So I turned to the power of the internet and found that, indeed, "good fences make good neighbors" predates "The Mending Wall" by about 30 years. https://books.google.com/books?id=zAgTAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22good%20fences%20make%20good%20neighbors%22&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q=%22good%20fences%20make%20good%20neighbors%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=zAgTAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22good%20...