Reference-chasing through Google Books

[wombat1138]

Ascribed to an Assyrian tablet from ~2800 BC: "Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching."

There are also several slight variations of the quote: "degenerate <-> "degenerating"; "later" <-> "latter" etc.

Interesting variation in a 1934 book: "Evil days have come upon us. A spirit of unrest is at hand. Children no longer obey their parents. Everybody wants to write a book. The end of the world is manifestly approaching."

Earliest absolute cite so far is from 1908:

7000 Years Ago:

The "good old times" seemed as bad to the "good-old-timers" as the present times seem to the modern man, as shown by the following translation on a tablet in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople, Turkey:

Naram Sin, 5000 BC

We have fallen upon evil times, the world has waxed old and wicked. Politics are very corrupt. Children are no longer respectful to their elders. Each man wants to make himself conspicuous and write a book.

A later variant along the same lines, from 1932:

We are fallen upon evil times,
And the world has waxed very old and wicked,
Politics are very corrupt.
The sons of the people are not
So righteous as their parents were.

...drat, Google Books decided that I'm sending "automated queries" and has shut me down for tonight. Something to look at later: Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study by Tremper Longman. Also, ANET = "Ancient Near-Eastern Texts".

On a different note, no one seems to know when/where the "French braid" hairstyle originated. (The French names for the hairstyle translate as "African braid" and "Indian braid".) There's an 1871 mention of it as a new hairstyle, but w/o a corresponding illustration or set of instructions, there's no way to know if it meant the same thing then as it does now. However, I was chuffed to find a set of instructions from 1882 for the style now called the "fishtail braid" and then called the "Grecian braid".

Comments

[fred-herman.livejournal.com]

[Heck with this, it's a point of probable fact. Feel like a vampire forced to stop and count things.]

(The French names for the hairstyle translate as "African braid" and "Indian braid".)

That would seem to imply the style originated among France's colonial holdings; if traditional or old enough, there probably wouldn't be a known origination point.

[fred-herman.livejournal.com]

While the citations here are apparently variant translations of the same actual piece of writing, the general feeling that they/it express pops up all over the place. I'm pretty sure Confucius talks in the Analectsabout how things used to be more proper. Homer has Nestor. And one might argue it's there in Genesis by implication, in that the most ancient patriarchs lived for centuries.

Also, many plants are green.