No news is good news

Posted by Smokey Stovder on January 10, 2006

In Reply to: No news is good news posted by ESC on January 10, 2006

: : I am looking for the origin of the saying "No news is good news"

: NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS - "The earliest version of this familiar saying was attributed to the English King James I, who wrote in 1616, 'No newis is bettir than evill newis.' Virtually the modern saying appeared some years later in James Howell's 'Familiar Letters' (c. 1645) with the line, 'I am of the Italians mind that said.no news, good news'." From Wise Words and Wives' Tales: The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New; by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993). Page 135.

I'm sure you've heard of the king's joker, or merry-man, who loved to make puns, so much so that the king, in disgust, ordered him hanged. But the king's vizier prevailed on him to grant the joker a reprieve. Upon learning it, the joker immediately said, "Well, no noose is good noose." So the king decided to hang him anyway.

• No news is good news Steve E 12/January/06