Leonid Asninadded a note 9 years ago

Оказывается, у американцев есть свой "гоп", которого не стоит говорить пока не перепрыгнешь, и проистекает этот "гоп" из байки Авраама Линкольна.

In his memoir, newspaper editor Horace Greeley wrote that everyone was asking Lincoln, “Are we really to have civil war?” Lincoln answered the anxious city slickers this way:

Many years ago, when I was a young lawyer, and Illinois was little settled, ..., I, with other lawyers, used to ride the circuit; journeying with the judge from county seat to county seat in quest of business. Once, after a long spell of pouring rain, which had flooded the whole country, transforming small creeks into rivers, we were often stopped by these swollen streams, which we with difficulty crossed. Still ahead of us was Fox River, larger than all the rest; and we could not help saying to each other, “If these streams give us so much trouble, how shall we get over Fox River?” Darkness fell before we had reached that stream; and we all stopped at a log tavern, had our horses put out, and resolved to pass the night. Here we were right glad to fall in with the Methodist Presiding Elder of the circuit, who rode it in all weather, knew all its ways, and could tell us all about Fox River. So we all gathered around him, and asked him if he knew about the crossing of Fox River. “O yes,” he replied, “I know all about Fox River. I have crossed it often, and understand it well; but I have one fixed rule with regard to Fox River: I never cross it til I reach it.”