Such is life; that's life

Posted by James Briggs on August 26, 2001

In Reply to: Such is life; that's life posted by ESC on August 26, 2001

: : I cannot find "such is life" in your archive, is it not worthy of mention!?

: "THAT'S LIFE - Life isn't fair, what happened to you isn't fair, but you need to accept it and go on. It is used to soften one's disappointment. It comes from the French 'C'est la vie,' which is often used, too. 'Such is life' is a variant." Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996). A second source says: "THAT'S LIFE; THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES; THAT'S THE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES - 'That's life,' meaning 'that's fate, that's the fortunes of life, the way things happen,' probably dates back at least to the turn of the century. It is thought to be a loan translation of the French 'c'est la vie.' The American expression 'That's the way the ball bounces,' meaning the same, appears to have originated with the U.S. Forces in Korea, while the synonymous 'that's the way it goes' came into the language a little later." From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

And don't forget Jack Lemmon's famous 'that's the way the cookie crumbles'.