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by Anonymous on April 22nd, 2007

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Where does the phrase "politics makes strange bedfellows" come from?

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Answers. 4 helpful answers below.

  • by VSPrasad on March 18th, 2008

    VSPrasad

    Politics has long been considered a plural noun; its use with a singular verb is comparatively recent. A well-established variant of adversity makes strange bedfellows.

    Party politics, like poverty, bring men ‘acquainted with strange bedfellows’.
    [1839 P. Hone Diary 9 July (1927) I. 404]

    The Doolittle raspberries have sprawled all over the strawberry-beds: so true is it that politics makes strange bed-fellows.
    [1870 C. D. Warner My Summer in Garden (1871) 187]

    Ashley Wilkes and I are mainly responsible. Platitudinously but truly, politics make strange bedfellows.
    [1936 M. Mitchell Gone with Wind lviii.]

    Even enemies have something in common. Statecraft produces strange bedfellows.
    [1980 P. Van greenaway Dissident vii.]

    Politics makes strange bedfellows, if Mr. Hyde will forgive the unforgivable but irresistible metaphor.
    [1995 Washington Times 31 Mar. A4]

    http://www.answers.com/politics%20makes%20strange%20bedfellows

    Political interests can bring together people who otherwise have little in common. This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a sleeping monster.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Politics+makes+strange+bedfellows&r=66

    “Politics makes strange bedfellows”

    Charles Dudley Warner (American Editor and Author, 1829-1900)

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  • by -O-uknow on March 17th, 2008

    -O-uknow

    Monica Lewinsky possibly

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  • by Sheriff Raff -Answerhag on March 17th, 2008

    Sheriff Raff -Answerhag

    the exploits of the front page fodder for the past decade... and recent days

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  • by Nuttsky on April 27th, 2007

    Nuttsky

    We've got spin-off expressions too, such as "to be in bed with," meaning closely associated where such an association is illegal/immoral - as when a politician is receiving kickbacks or bribes from a corporation in return for favors.

    There was a comic strip - was it Bloom County? - that had a character named Senator Bedfellow.

    As to origins, the following answer was found at

    http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/45/messages/158.html

    Posted by ESC on January 01, 2006 at 19:37:21:

    : Like so much else, it's originally from Shakespeare: "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows" (from The Tempest). In the 19th century it was adapted by Lord Lytton: "Poverty has strange bedfellows". I don't know who first attached it to "politics", but I have also heard "necessity makes strange bedfellows".

    POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS - "enemies forced by circumstances to work together; members of an unlikely alliance, often attacked as an 'unholy alliance.' 'True it is,' wrote Charles Dudley Warner in 1850, 'that politics makes strange bedfellows.' Warner, editor of the 'Hartford (Conn.) Courant,' was co-author with Mark Twain of 'The Gilded Age,'; he might have taken the expression from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's novel 'The Caxtons,' published in 1849, which contained the phrase 'Poverty has strange bedfellows.' More likely the source for both was Act II, scene 2 of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'." From "Safire's New Political Dictionary" by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). Page 762-763.

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