'Daft' seems to be used to mean 'insane' and the 'hound' apparently alludes to a stricken sailing ship. The story is, to current sensibilities, pretty much bonkers. Let sleeping dogs lie, said the daft man, when he saw the dead hound before him.
In December 1822 The London Magazine published a fanciful mariner's yarn entitled The Second Tale of Allan Lorburne, which included: To get to the current wording of the proverb we have to move to the 19th century. Sir Robert may have been in the habit of advising caution in political policy but, as far as the evidence shows, he didn't coin or even use the expression 'let sleeping dogs lie'. Of course, he may have repeated the form of the proverb printed earlier by Heywood. The expression appears nowhere in any of Walpole's published writings and, as far as I can tell, there is no record of his ever uttering it. The reason for that attribution is never explained and doesn't appear to be based on any evidence. It is so closely associated with him as to have been the source of a later cartoon. 'Let sleeping dogs lie' is frequently associated with or even attributed to Walpole and the proverb is many times mentioned in print as being his motto. The cautionary phrase was well enough known by the 16th century for it to have been included as a proverb in John Heywood's definitive A Dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546:Īt this point I ought to mention the 18th century British politician Sir Robert Walpole. By the time it became established as a proverb its meaning had 'leave well alone', or as we might have it in the 21st century, "if it ain't broke don't fix it". The expression may have started as a warning about the risk of waking a potentially dangerous animal, but it later turned metaphorical. "It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake." Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the first to put this notion into print, in Troilus and Criseyde, circa 1380, although the belief itself may well be much older: 'Let sleeping dogs lie' derives from the long-standing observation that dogs are often unpredictable when they are suddenly disturbed. What's the origin of the phrase 'Let sleeping dogs lie'? Dogs What's the meaning of the phrase 'Let sleeping dogs lie'?Īvoid interfering in a situation which is currently stable.
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