I think the saying "No good deed ever goes unpunished" doesn't make sense. Did someone mean to say "No good deed ever goes punished" but make an accidental slip of the tongue and say the opposite of what they mean?
by 
Egao No Genki
ANSWERS: 11
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I think that it has to do with the concept of "Unintended Consequences." One example that I can think of is the development of Ethanol from Corn in the United States. The "Good Deed" was in creating a fuel that would make the US Independent of Foreign Oil. The "Punishment" was that the demand for corn drove up the price of feed, which meant that Meat went up, and caused some shortages. And the Blame for that was placed against the "Good People" who were trying to solve a problem for US.
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It's one of those seemingly nonsensical sayings like "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". A good deed IDEALLY shouldn't be punished.
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It is meant to be amusing. It possibly did start with a slip of the tongue, got a laugh, and then began to be used over and over.
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: Gregory Y. Titelman, in _Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings_ (1996), writes: : : No good deed goes unpunished. Life is so unfair that one is more likely to get into some sort of trouble than be rewarded if one attempts to do a good deed. It was attributed to American financier John P. Grier, banker Andrew W. Mellon, and writer Clare Boothe Luce, but its ultimate origin is unknown. Listed in the sixteenth edition [1992] of Bartlett's _Familiar Quotations_, edited by Justin Kaplan. : : [1989-1994 citations omitted]http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/27/messages/327.html Still doesn't make sense to me either.
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I always heard it as "No ungood deed goes unpunished"
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Re "I think the saying "No good deed ever goes unpunished" doesn't make sense." -- live a little long and get more experience in the real world and you'll soon find out that it's true. One type of example is an actual "reward" you don't want -- like being entrusted with a special responsibility/project that's a real back-breaker ... and possibly a career-breaker. Another type of example is actual resentment or perhaps despise. Do some people a service and they ... a) look down on you as loser/gopher who they will treat like crap in the future, b) come to think of it as your actual duty and that they're entitled to it from here on out c) feel outshined or otherwise threatened by you d) might recieve it well (at first), but others may come to see you as a rival ... and enemy! e) take it as an insult, or some crass maneuver to put them in your debt. And then there's the old addage, "Never get more popular than the boss ... unless you intend to sack him."
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Its a saying based in cynical irony, it means that when you do something good, it seems like the world punishes you for it instead of rewarding you. When you help a friend out at work, you're the one that ends up getting fired. If you try to tell someone about a cheating spouse, they begin to resent YOU instead of the spouse. Things of this nature.
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I think they said it right. Sometimes I will go above and beyond for a customer at work and bend the policy to accomodate them and then they turn around and act ungrateful and snap at me. I have uttered this expression many times this past year. We gave someone 100 percent value of their return towards anything else. They carried on and wanted their money back and they wanted their shipping back too. So we ended up giving them 75 percent of the value as a refund (as per our policy) and then they spent so much back and forth disputing with their credit card company that they eventually got the 25 percent back but did they ever have to spend a lot of time on this project. You would not believe how much Mr. Magnusson spent in paper and time for $40.00.
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It means life is unfair. The saying is correct.
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No goes deed unpunished makes sense beacuse it is not the good deed itself it the person who do the deed for that can make the deed go unpunished. The saying has to do with people taking for forgranted of the good. I have learned you have be selective of who you do nice things for.
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Nope, it's not a slip of the tongue - it's just cynical.
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