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conuly

Poll #20788 If you're not actually quoting the poem....

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 108

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which are you more likely to say? "The best laid plans of mice and men"

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Often go awry
34 (35.1%)

Gang aft agley (and I speak like this all the time)
3 (3.1%)

Gang aft agley (and this is not my dialect)
60 (61.9%)

Before reading this question, were you aware that in the poem it's "schemes" and not "plans"?

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Yes
30 (27.8%)

No
78 (72.2%)

And of course here's the poem in question. Not speaking 18th century Scots I assume that breastie is intended to rhyme with beastie, that is, with a long e or the equivalent, but I'd rather read it so beastie is homophonous with bestie. That mouse is my bff!

(If you scroll down the page here you'll find the same poem again with a modern English translation.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

8hyenas

and i also was not aware it was a poem, or that there was more to the line after mice and men...

From:

affreca

I'm with you. Which makes me sad, because I like the Burns I've come across (which was mostly the Thistle and Shamrock episode of all Burns songs, followed by high school me discovering bawdy poetry in my library).

From:

pauamma

Same here.

From:

conuly

But if there's nothing after the line after "the best laid plans of mice and men" then it doesn't mean anything. It's like saying "When in Rome" when nobody knows what happens in Rome and why.

From:

fred_mouse

I don't think that's true. I learnt it as a child with just that section, and the context it was used it was always when something unexpected had happened, causing something to fail. So, bad thing happens, head shaking and quote, as a result I know that the best laid plans of mice and men fail, and then many years later I learn the rest of it.