It is a good day to have a Bartlett's. Moira and I were engaged in one of our common pastimes – slagging on some random Internet lackwit – when the question arose: who said, "It is a good day to die"? Or rather, who was first famously quoted as saying it? Because the Klingons probably say it a lot, but they clearly swiped it, a la Dempsey/Reagan. After a bout of brain-cudgeling, I thought Sitting Bull might have said it, prior to Little Bighorn, but it just didn't seem like Sitting Bull's style. Searching through Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee[1] turned up nothing. Wikipedia was no help; searching on the phrase brought up an entry for a forgettable album by a forgotten midwestern band. The entry on Sitting Bull didn't help; the entry on Little Bighorn was remarkably poor, with nary a peep about the Sioux/Cheyenne side of the battle. Googling the phrase itself, I came across a few sites that listed Crazy Horse as the speaker – that's the kind of bad-ass thing you'd expect Crazy Horse to say – but the overall consensus is that it was the Oglala chief Low Dog.

(I'd never heard of him before either.)

[1]Why is it that people who leave reviews on Amazon are such dweebs?


Posted by David Fleck at 20 May 2006 03:03 PM
Comments

Why is it that people who leave reviews on Amazon are such dweebs?

I agree, but can you point to the specific incident of dweebage you're referring to? Maybe we'd like to take a punch, too. Or are you keeping all the good dweebs to yourselves, you selfish bastards?

Do you think Amazon reviewers are more or less dweeby than IMDB reviewers? I believe the latter take the trophy, hands down. I especially like foreign reviewers who draw sweeping conclusions about American culture from movies.

Posted by: Angie Schultz on May 21, 2006 09:45 AM

Specific incident? No, not really. It's chopped too fine and spread too evenly, and comes from just about every viewpoint. I think I found myself rolling my eyes at some point in every review I read, save one.

I will agree, however, that compared to the IMDB reviews, Amazon is Plato's effing Academy.

Posted by: David Fleck on May 21, 2006 03:39 PM

Actually, the impetus for the discussion about the phrase came from an Amazon review, written by one Mr. Gillespie of Toronto, of Not a Good Day to Die. (Second under "Customer Reviews"). We were entertaining ourselves debating whether he was suffering from pathological literal-mindedness, or perhaps a mutation in the genes controlling the capacity to decipher the flashing "allusion" signs on the Great Highway of the Word.

(We're mighty snotty for people who didn't know who Low Dog was, ain't we?)

Posted by: Moira Breen on May 21, 2006 06:51 PM

I don't have a good link for it, but I have heard that it was a Sioux phrase that the Klingons (or at least the Star Trek writers) adopted.

Just keep clear of Klingon short order cooks-"It is a good day to fry!"

Posted by: Mark Byron on May 22, 2006 08:18 PM

I think the phrase is used in "Little Big Man" ... well, very close: "today is a good day to die." Not that that answers your question. But the movie may have popularized it.

Posted by: Thomas Nephew on May 23, 2006 09:48 AM

Look no further. Any fool knows this was one of Blowfeld's top lines in Goldfinger:

"Today is a good day to die, Mr. Bond."

This should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells.

Posted by: Jonathan on May 23, 2006 04:52 PM

Angie, if you want another example, look at the customer reviews of the 2006 version of the Almanac of American Politics. There you will find one W. F. Gray, a librarian at a community college, who will no longer purchase the book for his college library because Barone has become (moderately) conservative.

When I saw Gray's review, I was so annoyed that I wrote a post about it and still think that I should put up my own review in reply.

I don't know of an equivalent reference, by the way, in spite of what Gray says.

Posted by: Jim Miller on May 25, 2006 09:30 AM

Mark, Thomas-

So I guess it's just a "Sioux thing", akin to the Maori haka or the Crusaders' "Deus Vult!".

Jonathan-

I have one, Moira has three. So we're SOL.

Posted by: David Fleck on May 29, 2006 09:59 AM

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