Miriam
All work an no play makes Jack a dull boy
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is another interesting expression I cam across in the TV series Blacklist: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_work_and_no_play_makes_Jack_a_dull_boy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_work_and_no_play_makes_Jack_a_dull_boy</a>;. It means that one should also take off some time from work and enjoy leisure activities in order not to become a boring person.

If you're a native English speaker claiming that you never heard this expression, then you clearly haven't watched The Shining by Stanley Kubrick with Jack Nicholson, as this proverb plays a prominent part: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeOevu4zC5o" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeOevu4zC5o</a>;.

If you're not a native English speaker and watched The Shining, you may say "Hey, I remember that scene but the sentence wasn't there!". You're right. It probably wasn't.

Here's the same scene in German: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqaMNPtye_M" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqaMNPtye_M</a>;.


The sentences in the other language versions aren't translations of "all work no play makes Jack a dull boy" though, but common proverbs in the respective languages and they have completely different meanings.

German: Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen (Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today)

Italian: Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca (The morning has gold in its mouth; we also have this in German: Morgenstund' hat Gold im Mund. It means it's better to rise early.)

Spanish: No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano (No matter how early you get up, you can’t make the sun rise any sooner)

French: Un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l’auras (What you have is worth much more than what you will have)

Do you use "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"? Do you know other films, books etc. where this expression is used? Do you know other language versions of The Shining and the respective proverb used in that scene? And what would be the actual accurate translation of "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" in your native tongue or target language?

In German, one could translate is as "Arbeit allein macht nicht glücklich" (Work alone doesn't make happy.)

Edit: There's a typo in the title. Of course it should be "and" instead of "an".
6 de mar. de 2020 7:07
Comentarios · 11
5
I can't remember the last time using the phrase, but there's no reason I couldn't. If I were to, then I'd shorten it to "all work and no play", implying the rest, which sounds rather cliché. I'd be surprised if a native English speaker hadn't heard it echoed dozens of times in some form already.

The one I still remember best was from The Simpsons, back when they were still funny. They had a take on The Shining in their Halloween special Treehouse of Horror V:
Homer - "No TV and no beer make Homer something something."
Marge - "Go crazy?"
Homer - "Don't mind if I do!"

I'm learning Polish, so I had to look up what the appropriate phase might be. Of course I don't think there's any good direct translation, but the closest seems to be "<em>Nie samą pracą człowiek żyje</em>", or something like "one does not live on work alone", which mirrors the biblical verse with bread. I could find lots of demotivators with the phrase, so it seems common enough.
6 de marzo de 2020
3
only saw it in the shining. such a good movie! 😫
6 de marzo de 2020
3
I had seldom heard anyone use "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" before the "The Shining" came out. It was the kind of disused proverb that most people knew from listening to their grandparents or from reading books written in earlier times.

I still don't think I've ever heard it used in earnest. After "The Shining" came out, though, it slowly took on a new life as a saying meaning: "I've been doing something crazy, and now I'm about to do something crazier." It's usually accompanied by an attempt to imitate Jack Nicolson's voice and weird-eyebrows-&-crazy-eyes expression.

This is the best example I can think of:
You and I and some friends are camping way out in the country, near a grassy open field. It's late in the evening and we're being silly (maybe we're a little bit drunk :). We've been running around the field with our arms outstretched, imitating jet engines noises and pretending to be airplanes, like we were little kids on a school playground. It's a clear night, there's no rain in the weather forecast, and someone says, "Wow - the only way this would be nuttier would be if we were all using the rain flies of our tents for wings or something."
I stop running, and in my best (not very good) Nicholson, say: "Ha-ha! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! - And Evelyn a dull girl!" I run over to my tent, grab the rain fly, throw it over my shoulders, and start swooping around the filed with my "wings" streaming and flapping behind me.
6 de marzo de 2020
2
I would say anyone in The UK above 50 years of age/fifty years old will know and would have used the full expression. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", that is possibly linked to "Jack" in the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill went up the hill"

I think "Don't mind if I do" reflects the use of using negatives in the English language, that is perfectly acceptable and used appropriately by native born English speakers or anyone who learnt/learned English from a very young age would know how to phrase such negative sentences. The teaching of "double negatives" as always being wrong and incorrectly identifying double negatives by some teachers may have lead to such negative usage statements dropping out of fashion. But I am not a linguist. Let's see what any linguists have to say.

Regarding learnt/learned the addition of a T to reflect the past was very common by Brits across many words. Now learned is also used in the UK. My thoughts on the few words remaining where we Brits or older Brits still instinctively say and write the "t" are:

in no particular order
<ol><li>Learnt</li><li>Burnt</li><li>meant</li></ol>
These three are refusing to die, you will hear them constantly used by Television presenters in the UK.

Prince William of the British Royal Family seems to use the supposed American in his speech.
Saying Learned and burned but still uses meant and not meaned that is not in a dictionary and sounds totally off to everybody's ears.
6 de marzo de 2020
2
Definitely heard it often. Although we tend to say just the first half, possibly because the second half sounds a bit dated, but also because it is too long!
You often hear it in a half-teasing, half-caring kind of way.
6 de marzo de 2020
Mostrar más