Hello!

Here's an expression I am not sure to understand properly: "There, but for the grace of God, goes God". 

It's Churchill saying that about sir Stafford Cripps, who, after his stay in Moscow as British Ambassador had returned to London and had found himself immensely popular, which prompts Winston to believe that Cripps time as diplomat had gone to his head.



I suspect it's rather more a linguistic than an historical question, but I am not completely sure that Winston idiosincrasy is not involved, making it an observation historically-framed or even common for the native speaker.


I assume it to mean something like that: "There goes a guy that has got conceited for the grace of God". Am I too far away from a correct target?


Thanks for your help. I wish I could see more clearly through the sometimes misty expressions of "Churchillian English".


:-)

Comic Monster, I think MM is very busy with his B&B there in the Provincia Narbonensis. It is the week-end of Easter and I suppose it is all sails on now.
I apologize for being of no help as I am only good in Dutch and even Belgian Dutch, while the Dutch, (even with a common "language commission") from our Northern brethren still differs from our Dutch in Belgium...yes 400 years apart you don't change in a minut...
If perhaps our nordmann would come out from his isolement for this...?

Kind regards from Paul.

The saying which is a new one to me seems to be a play on 'There but for the grace of God go I' - https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-but-for-the-grace-of-god.html sometimes ascribed to Protestant martyr, John Bradford - a bit like 'there but for fortune go you or I'.  I found a link with the 'but for the grace of god goes god' saying but there doesn't seem to be 100% agreement that the phrase was originated by Churchill https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/08/but-grace  It does seem to have the sense of someone becoming above him/herself but it's hard to think of an exact meaning.

Hi PaulRyckier!
How are you? Hope perfectly well!
Thanks for your answer. No worries. I can wait and go forward with my translation (no fear of being short of pages to translate; this book is a monument…).

Hello Lady inRetirement: thanks a lot for your links. They are very informative and they'll work well for future conundrums. I still find myself unable to pierce the meaning of this somewaht strange expression. From one of the links you've sent I understand it pointing at something like that: "God him/herself would have suffered that predicament, had not it be for his/her own mercy". But that's clearly pure guesswork.

I really appreciate your kind help. We should keep waiting for someone elses's mercy…

Take care,

CM

I think LiR has it correct. Churchill thought Stafford Cripps very pompous and arrogant, hence his witty dig - although as you note when it is analysed, as a witticism it doesn't quite work. Nevertheless I take it to mean something along the lines of Churchill commentating that, Cripps may think he is God and he may act like God, ... but he isn't God (God is God),  ... and with the reference to "by the grace of" he's probably implying ... and he [Cripps] is certainly not possessed of God's graciousness!

Of course Churchill could himself at times be immensly pompous and arrogant too ...  and was probably sometimes irreverantly called "God" by his junior staff - that being a fairly common jokey term of the time when referring to an all powerful boss.

Ah! That makes sense, Meles meles! The meaning of the sentence walks certainly this path in my understanding of it. The fact that Churchill was probably called "God" by his junior staff makes me remember another politician who was certainly called "God" within his own party in the early 80's in Spain: Felipe González, who obtained 202 PM, from a total of 350, in 1982, and reigned unchallenged (at least not till the very end) for 14 full years in the young Spanish democracy.

I thanks you Meles meles and all of you. That's wonderful help.