A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

Recent entries:
•“Welcome to growing older. Where all the foods and drinks you’ve loved for years suddenly seem determined to destroy you” (4/17)
•“Date someone who drinks with you instead of complaining that you drink” (4/17)
•“Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie” (4/17)
•“Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing the evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie” (4/17)
•“Government creates the crises so it can ‘rescue’ you with the loss of freedom” (4/17)
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Entry from December 15, 2012
“No news is good news; no journalists is even better”

“No news is good news” is a proverb that dates to about the 1500s. “No news is good news; no journalists is even better” was in the book The Treasury of Humorous Quotations (1951), edited by Evan Esar in the United States and Nicolas Bentley in the English edition. Nicolas Bentley (1907-1978) has been credited with the saying.
 
   
Wikipedia: Nicolas Bentley
Nicolas Clerihew Bentley (14 June 1907 – 14 August 1978) was a British author and illustrator, best known for his humorous cartoon drawings in books and magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. (The son of Edmund Clerihew Bentley (inventor of the clerihew verse form), he was given the name Nicholas but opted to change the spelling.)
   
(Oxford English Dictionary)
news, n.
In proverbs and proverbial expressions. Freq. in no news is good news and variants: without information to the contrary you can assume that all is well.
1574 E. Hellowes tr. A. de Guevara Familiar Epist. 91   Euill newes neuer commeth to late [Port. La mala nueua nunca llega tarde].
1616 King James VI & I Let. 13 May in A. J. Kempe Loseley Manuscripts (1835) 403,  I desyre not that ye shoulde trouble me with an ansoure, for no newis is bettir then evill newis.
1647 J. Howell New Vol. of Lett. 60,  I am of the I[t]alians mind that said Nulla nuova, buona nuova, no newes good newes.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The Treasury of Humorous Quotations. Edited by E. Esar. English edition edited by Nicolas Bentley.
Author: Evan ESAR; Nicolas BENTLEY
Publisher: Phoenix House: London, 1951.
Edition/Format:   Book : English
     
Google Books
Books and Bookmen
Volumes 5-6
1959
Pg. ?:
Nicholas Bentley: “No news is good news; no journalists is even better.”
 
Google Books
A Proverb a Day Keeps Boredom Away
By Anna Tóthné Litovkina
Pécs-Szekszárd: IPF-Könyvek
2000
Pg. 38:
No news is good news; no journalists is even better. (Nicolas Bentley, in Prochnow 1988: 25)
 
Google Books
Do Unto Others ... Then Run:
A Little Book of Twisted Proverbs
By Gerd De Ley
Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Pub.
2002
Pg. ?:
No news is good news; no journalists is even better.
NICOLAS BENTLEY
 
Google Books
Little Giant Encyclopedia:
Toasts & Quotes: Toasts & Quotes
By Diagram Group
New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
2009
Pg. 278:
No news is good news; no journalists is even better.
NJICOLAS BENTLEY

Posted by Barry Popik
New York City • Media/Newspapers/Magazines/Internet • Saturday, December 15, 2012 • Permalink


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