[PW] Origin of purpose=cathedral anecdote

[Doty, Fadia]

http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22i%27m+building+a+cathedral%22+%22
making%22+%22breaking%22&btnG=Search+Books 
if you also add "making" and "breaking" you get only seven hits

Fadia Doty, Sr. Library Asst.
San Joaquin Valley Information Service


-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-open-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf
Of Sue Kamm
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 10:19 AM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] Origin of purpose=cathedral anecdote

This may be off the wall, but have you tried indexes to folklore?
-----Original Message-----
>From: Hilary Caws-Elwitt <sctylibrary at stny.rr.com>
>Sent: Dec 11, 2007 8:53 AM
>To: list at project-wombat.org
>Subject: [PW] Origin of purpose=cathedral anecdote
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>Patron says:
>
>"I am looking for the original story and source that this is referring
to:
>'There is an old story, probably apocryphal, about three men working in
a quarry 
>who were asked what they were doing. The first man said that he was
breaking big 
>rocks into little ones. The second man said he was making a living. The
third 
>man said that he was building a cathedral.'"
>
> From what I can tell, it is indeed apocryphal. Here is what I told
him:
>
>"There are literally hundreds of different versions of this story, all
over the 
>web and all over books. A search in Google Books on the key phrase 'I'm
building 
>a cathedral' brings up 179 results. Unfortunately, none of them are
full-text. 
>In the first 100, it looks like the earliest results are from 1925:
>http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22i%27m+building+a+cathedral%22&sa
=N&start=30
>(scroll down to 'Cathedral Age')
>
>I don't find a pre-1923 source in Project Gutenberg, but I find it hard
to 
>believe that it wasn't already widespread in the 1920s since it appears
in other 
>sources close in time to 'Cathedral Age' in Google Books."
>
>He is still searching for an original source, so I turn to the
collective wisdom 
>of wombats.
>
>I checked a few quotation and phrase books as well, but this type of
anecdote 
>doesn't seem to be covered. Any other ideas for sources? I don't have
access to 
>a historical newspaper database.
>
>Thanks!
>-- 
>--
>Hilary Caws-Elwitt, Systems & Public Services Librarian
>Community Information Network Administrator/Programmer
>Susquehanna County Library, 2 Monument Sq, Montrose PA 18801
>Phone 570-278-1881 -- Fax 570-278-9336
>info at susqcolibrary.org -- http://www.susqcolibrary.org
>info at susquehannaCIN.net -- http://www.susquehannaCIN.net
>_______________________________________________
>Project Wombat
>list at project-wombat.org
>http://www.project-wombat.org/


Your friendly CyberGoddess and Councilor-at-large,
Sue Kamm
Inglewood/Los Angeles, CA
Truest of the Blue, Los Angeles Dodgers Think Blue Week 2000
Visit my blog:  http://suekamm.blogspot.com
email:  suekamm [at] mindspring.com
"I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start
spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball
court."- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
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