De gustibus non est disputandum

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De gustibus non est disputandum, or de gustibus non disputandum est, is a Latin maxim meaning "In matters of taste, there can be no disputes" (literally: "about tastes, it is not to be disputed"). [1] [2] The phrase is related in American English to a similar but slightly more derogatory phrase: "There is no accounting for tastes" [3] or "taste". [4] The notion expressed in the Latin is found more easily in the still-common French phrase: à chacun son goût ("to each his own taste").

Contents

Origin

One known early use of the phrase is in a legal text of 1628: Repetitio legis Imperialem de prohibita feudi alienat. per Fridericum: cum summariis & indice locupletissimo, by Horatius Montanus (Naples, Secondino Roncagliolo, 1628). [5]

Montanus gives the example of a vassal's duty to his lord, and considers whether the vassal discharges his duty if he disobeys his lord's instructions to purchase a particular house but instead buys another house of much greater value for the same price. He concludes that you cannot legally argue whether the vassal has discharged his duty until you know the lord's attitude to the decision—because no legal argument can be made about what people may prefer.

The phrase is misquoted in Act I of Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull . The character Shamrayev conflates it with the phrase de mortuis nil nisi bonum (in its alternative form: de mortuis, aut bene aut nihil: "of the dead, either [speak] good or [say] nothing"), resulting in de gustibus aut bene, aut nihil — "Let nothing be said of taste but what is good." [6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "De gustibus non est disputandum". The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002
  2. ↑ "de gustibus non est disputandum". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary .
  3. ↑ Bartlett, John (1992). Familiar Quotations (16 ed.). Boston: Little, Brown. p.  118. ISBN   0-316-08277-5.
  4. ↑ Mieder, Wolfgang (1992). A Dictionary of American Proverbs. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 813. ISBN   978-0-19-505399-9.
  5. ↑ p. 31
  6. ↑ Chekhov, Anton (1997). "Introduction". The Seagull. trans. by Stephen Mulrine. London: Nick Hern Books Ltd. pp. xvii. ISBN   1-85459-193-2.
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