Date:  Thu, 11 Sep 1997 21:20:38 -0400
From:  Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Great Wigwam; Murphy's and Rawson's UNWRITTEN LAWS

>   The U. S. Navy's MURPHY'S LAW training film in 1957 is clear, but the
> 1949 story puzzles me. Supposedly, Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr. worked
> under Colonel John P. Stapp at Edwards Air Force Base; Murphy screwed in
> things the wrong way. The original law was that if there are two ways of
> doing something (right and wrong), someone will do it the wrong way.
>   Check the HDAS H-O 1957 citation from the Tamony Collection. Peter
> Tamony (in nearby San Francisco) was a master at collecting Americanisms.
> How could "Murphy's Law" have completely escaped him for eight years? And

Note that the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs documents 1955 and
1956 citations for _Murphy's Law_.


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 Fred R. Shapiro               Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
 Associate Librarian for Public Services   TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research      ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
 Yale Law School               Oxford University Press, 1997
 e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu        ISBN 0-19-509547-2
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