Neverisms

today.ALDOUS HUXLEY, from the character Lenina in Brave New World (1932)

Never put off till tomorrow

what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.MARK TWAIN, handwritten in an autographed card, December 1881

(and yes, in his note, a “the” is missing before the word “day”)

While Lord Chesterfield’s legendary piece of advice to his son is only a couple of hundred years old, some other classic neverisms go back to ancient times:

Never promise more than you can perform.PUBLILIUS SYRUS, in his Maxims (1st century B.C.)

This saying has a distinctly modern feel, though written more than two thousand years ago. Originally brought to Rome as the infant child of a Syrian slave couple, Publilius Syrus was a highly precocious boy who so impressed his Roman master that he was provided with a nobleman’s education and later freed. As a young man, he came out of nowhere to defeat the greatest orator of his time, Decimus Laberius, in an oratory contest. At the time, such contests were immensely popular, and the surprise victory made Syrus an overnight celebrity. He ultimately became one of the world’s most celebrated orators, but all that remains of his work are several hundred moral maxims, including such immortal lines as “A rolling stone gathers no moss” and “It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.” Syrus also gave the world one other classic neverism:

Never find your delight in another’s misfortune.

While many classic neverisms have ancient roots, others are surprisingly recent:

Never let ’em see you sweat.

This admonition to keep cool during challenging times first appeared in 1985 as the tagline of an advertising campaign for Gillette’s Dry Idea deodorant. The slogan was the brainchild of Phil Slott, the executive vice president of BBDO, the agency behind the campaign. Slott was a major player in the ad world at the time, the creator of such slogans as TWA’s “Up, Up, and Away” and the U.S. Navy’s “It’s Not Just a Job, It’s an Adventure.” When he began working on the campaign, Slott aimed for a theme that embodied his philosophy of advertising, which he expressed this way: “Saying what you won’t get is more compelling than saying what you will get.” Applying this to a deodorant campaign, he said:

When it comes to deodorants, saying “Never let ’em see you sweat,”

was more compelling than saying “You’ll always be dry.”

When the Dry Idea commercials began airing in 1985, they featured four American celebrities: fashion designer Donna Karan, model/actress Lauren Hutton, comedian Elaine Boosler, and Dan Reeves, the head coach of the Denver Broncos. In each commercial, the format was the same. The celebrities all began by saying that there were three “nevers” in their professions. Then, after mentioning the first two, they transitioned to the third one: “Never let ’em see you sweat.” The commercials were well-scripted, well-produced, and surprisingly well-acted. I think you will enjoy seeing the essential elements of all four commercials below:Well, there are three nevers in comedy. Never follow a better comedian.Never give a heckler the last word.And, no matter how bad a joke bombs,though it’s never happened to me personally, never let ’em see you sweat.ELAINE BOOSLER

There are three nevers to getting older in Hollywood. Never audition first thing in the morning. Never try to play a character half your age. And, even if your leading man is prettier than you are, never, never let ’em see you sweat.LAUREN HUTTON

There are three nevers in fashion design. Never confuse fad with fashion. Never forget it’s your name on every label. And, when showing your lines to the press,

never let ’em see you sweat.DONNA KARAN

I think there’s three nevers to being a winning coach. Never let the press pick your starting quarterback.Never take a last-place team lightly.

And, really, no matter what the score,

never let ’em see you sweat.DON REEVES

The Dry Idea commercials were among the most popular television ads of the era. By the mid–1990s, the series was retired and Gillette ultimately let its trademark for the slogan expire. Happily, those famous ads are still available for viewing. To see them, simply go to the neverisms menu of my website—www.drmardy.com—and select the “YouTube Neverisms” link.

A few years after the Dry Idea slogan first aired, another classic saying made its appearance on the pop-culture scene:

Never bring a knife to a gunfight.

This warning about being inadequately prepared for an upcoming conflict is so popular in America that it would be easy to think it has its origins in Wild West shootouts. The evidence suggests, however, that the expression was not used before 1987. So what happened in that year? The answer might surprise you.

In June of 1987, Paramount Pictures released The Untouchables, a Prohibition-era crime drama starring Kevin Costner as the famed FBI G-man Eliot Ness, and Sean Connery as an Irish-American Chicago beat cop named Jim Malone. With a screenplay by David Mamet and an all-star cast that included Robert De Niro as Capone and Andy Garcia as a rookie cop just out of the Police Academy, the film was one of the top- grossing movies of the year (it also won Connery an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role). In a scene early in the movie, as Ness and Malone discuss how to capture Capone, the street-smart Chicago cop played by Connery urges what might be called an overpowering strategy:You wanna get Capone? Here’s how you get ’im. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the “Chicago” way! And that’s how you get Capone.

Later in the film, one of Capone’s henchmen breaks into Malone’s apartment and sneaks up behind him with an open switchblade knife in hand. Malone swings around, points a shotgun at the intruder, and says, “Isn’t that just like a wop? Brings a knife to a gunfight.” Within months of the film’s release, the saying “Never bring a knife to a gunfight” began to appear all around the country. And while we don’t know the identity of the original author, it seems fairly certain that the inspiration for the saying came from that memorable scene.

While the actual words about bringing a knife to a gunfight were first uttered in The Untouchables, the underlying idea behind the saying appeared six years earlier in another famous Hollywood film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Released in 1981, the film contains one of the most famous sight gags in cinematic history. As Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) makes his way through a crowded marketplace in search of his missing love interest (Karen Allen), he is confronted by a menacing Arab warrior who brazenly threatens him with a scimitar. The situation looks grim, and Indiana appears to be stopped in his tracks by the knife-wielding adversary. How will he extricate himself from this dangerous predicament? The intrepid anthropologist, who looks a bit weary from his many recent adventures, looks over at his opponent, wipes his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, and then pulls out a revolver from under his shirttail, shooting his opponent dead. The scene still elicits howls of laughter, decades after the film was released, and no matter how many times it has been viewed.

Many fans of that famous Raiders of the Lost Ark scene do not know, however, that the notion of bringing a knife to a gunfight was reprised in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). In this film, the aging anthropologist teams up with a young and headstrong sidekick, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). There is a lot of age-related banter between the costars, but perhaps the most memorable occurs when the two men are seated in a bar and are approached by a couple of menacing KGB agents. As the agents begin to make their move, Mutt clicks open a switchblade knife. When the two agents draw