Never Attempt To Teach a Pig To Sing
Posted byquoteresearch July 10, 2017
Mark Twain? Robert Heinlein? Paul Dickson? Anonymous?
Dear Quote Investigator: Teaching a pig to sing is a futile task that aggravates the porcine student according to a popular saying. Luminary Mark Twain and science fiction author Robert Heinlein have received credit for this adage. Would you please determine the accurate ascription and the original context?
Quote Investigator: In 1973 Robert Heinlein published “Time Enough for Love” featuring a main character, Lazarus Long, who appeared in several other novels by the author. Long was a colorful individualist who had been genetically selected to live for centuries. He delivered the adage during a discussion of avarice and deceit. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:[1]
I have never swindled a man. At most I kept quiet and let him swindle himself. This does no harm, as a fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Thus, the context was the difficulty and pointlessness of communicating a lesson that an individual is unwilling or unready to learn.
The implausible ascription to Mark Twain occurred in recent decades and is unsupported.
A different saying with a distinct meaning is sometimes confused with this adage. QI has a separate article on this topic: Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1809 a precursor with a musical instrument appeared in “The Gentleman’s Magazine” where it was described as more than two thousand years old:[2]
When the Greeks meant to say that a man was absurdly, foolishly, or improperly employed, they used to say,
“He ploughs the air;
. . .
He is making clothes for fishes;
He is teaching an old woman to dance;
He is teaching a pig to play on a flute;
He catches the wind with a net;
A thematically germane citation appeared in a Waterford, Ireland newspaper in 1866. The task of teaching a pig to sing, dance, and whistle was included in the lyrics of a comical Irish ballad as an example of an absurd enterprise:[3]
You may catch old birds with chaff.
Says the Shan van Vocht,
You may coax a cow to laugh,
Says the Shan van Vocht,
You may teach a pig to sing,
To dance a “Hieland fling.”
Or whistle any thing.
Says the Shan van Vocht.
In 1877 the London humor magazine “Punch” published a parody of a popular adventure book titled “A Ride to Khiva” by Frederick Burnaby. The parody was titled “Diary of My Ride to Khiva”, and the author was unidentified. During one satirical episode a “learned pig” was distracted and irritated by a singing mouse:[4]
Slight jealousy between the Learned Pig and the Musical Mouse. Whenever the Pig begins to practise with his letters (as he has to do every day), the Musical Mouse begins to whistle and sing, just to put him out, and make him wild. This annoys the Pig, who spells things wrong, and doesn’t answer questions properly. Consequently, I am obliged to beat the Pig. Whereupon he grunts piteously, and spells out, “Cuss that Mouse!” If I could only smooth matters over, and bring them together, it would be a fortune!
In 1889 “The Salt-Cellars: Being a Collection of Proverbs Together with Homely Notes Theron” by Charles Haddon Spurgeon included the following entry:[5]
There’s no profit in teaching a pig to play the flute.
Even if the pupil could learn, others would do the business better. There are persons who have no capacity for learning a certain art, and teaching it to them would be lost labour.
In 1900 teaching musical skills to crows or pigs was depicted as a dubious undertaking:[6]
Curtiss asked him what he would charge for teaching the crows how to sing melodiously. He burst out laughing. “Why I’d as soon expect to teach a pig to squeal in tune as to teach a crow to sing. They have absolutely no ear at all.”
In 1914 a columnist in “The Pittsburgh Gazette Times” of Pennsylvania presented the goal of teaching a pig to sing opera as an instance of an outlandish impractical objective:[7]
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