Call it fate, call it kismet, but please call me if you know where it comes from

June 10, 2010 11:06 AM

Where does the quote "Call it fate, call it kismet, call it what you will..." come from? I have wondered for years, and occasionally searched, but never found a source. Googling the phrase turns up a couple of identical uses of it. Googling "call it kismet" turns up lots of examples that are clearly based on something like it as a template. But where does it come from originally?
posted by rusty to Writing & Language (20 answers total)

I don't know if it's the first use, but Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) says something along those lines to Ray (Dan Aykroyd) at the beginning of the first Ghostbusters movie:

"For whatever reasons, Ray, call it . . . fate, call it luck, call it karma. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we were destined to get thrown out of this dump."
posted by terilou at 11:14 AM on June 10, 2010

The concept you're referring to as a 'template' is called a snowclone. It might be in the snowclone database, and/or adding 'snowclone' to your google searches may help as well.
posted by griphus at 11:17 AM on June 10, 2010

for what it's worth, if you just search for "call it fate, call it what you will" you get the following results on google:

Call it chance, call it fate, call it what you will
Call it a prophecy, call it a prediction, call it fate—call it what you will
Call it serendipitous, call it fate, call it what you will
Call it luck, call it fate, call it what you will
Call it variance, call it fate, call it what you will
Call it Karma, call it fate, call it what you will
call it coincidence, call it fate, call it what you will
Call it hazard, call it fate, call it what you will


Which is to say, I don't think your specific example is a quote at all... it's a one of a variety of things that match this template -- your exact quote only turns up 3 hits on google... I don't think it comes from anywhere.

If you just google "call it what you will," the fate ones don't make the first page. It's just a common thing to say.
posted by brainmouse at 11:17 AM on June 10, 2010

There's a line in the 1968 version of The Producers: "This is fate! This is destiny! This is kismet!"
posted by Bromius at 11:27 AM on June 10, 2010

That pattern of listing synonyms for things and then saying "call it what you will" goes back a long way.

Here is an example from a pamphlet from 1643, and it's probably older than that. "Self will, carnal reason, call it what you will, an evil spirit it is."

I found that in Google Books
posted by interplanetjanet at 11:47 AM on June 10, 2010

There is certainly the possibility that it's not a quote, or a line from something. The only reason I feel like it has to be is the word "kismet," which, like, where would I have gotten that from? In my head, it sounds like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.

griphus: I checked the snowclone db, but no love there. Adding "snowclone" to my google search now turns up this thread. Which I guess is a good thing. Maybe it'll rope in someone else who is wondering the same thing.
posted by rusty at 12:26 PM on June 10, 2010

About the snowclone theory -- if that's what it is, and it could well be, I would amend my question to whether there's an "original" that all the variants are patterned off. The original would be roughly in the format: "Call it X, call it Y, call it what you will."

interplanetjanet: I don't think your find quite matches the pattern -- the repetition of "call it..." seems to be a necessary feature. The phrase "call it what you will" all by itself pretty much requires a construction like the one you cited, no matter what. Perhaps the pattern is simply born of the combination of "call it what you will" ending a list of synonyms and the rhetorical effectiveness of a list of three things that all start with "call it."
posted by rusty at 12:31 PM on June 10, 2010

Here's the OED entry for kismet... it's Turkish, useage of the word in English goes back to 1849.

Kismet

Etymology:
[Turk. kismet, Pers. qismat, a. Arab. qisma(t) portion, lot, fate, f. qasama to divide.]

Meaning:
Destiny, fate.

Usage in English:
1849 E. B. EASTWICK Dry Leaves 46 One day a man related to me a story of Kismat or destiny. 1865 MRS. GASKELL in Cornh. Mag. Feb. 219 It's a pity when these old Saxon houses vanish off the land; but it is ‘kismet’ with the Hamleys. 1883 F. M. CRAWFORD Mr. Isaacs i. 19 The stars or the fates..or whatever you like to term your kismet.
posted by einekleine at 12:33 PM on June 10, 2010

I don't think it's a quote, but it may sound like Humphrey Bogart because of the rash of films like Algiers and Kismet during the Casablanca period of Hollywood. And yes, I know those movies weren't made all at the same time.
posted by bardophile at 12:35 PM on June 10, 2010

Just looking at that last useage reference 'The stars or the fates..or whatever you like to term your kismet.' - seems like it's a 19th C common phrase.

Thanks, will start to attempt to use!
posted by einekleine at 12:35 PM on June 10, 2010

Is it a song lyric?
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:51 PM on June 10, 2010

Sorry I'm procrastinating... here is the first recorded use of the word in 1849. Francis Crawford, who spent sometime in the middle east may well have populated in his first novel, using a phraseology not a million miles from your snowcloned recollection.
posted by einekleine at 12:53 PM on June 10, 2010

populated = popularised it

but that's a mighty mighty guess.
posted by einekleine at 12:55 PM on June 10, 2010

There's also a great line like that from Ghostbusters.

"For whatever reasons, Ray, call it . . . fate, call it luck, call it karma. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we were destined to get thrown out of this dump."
posted by trinkatot at 2:16 PM on June 10, 2010

As soon as I read the line, I heard it in my head as a song fragment. Googling it as song lyrics has turned up nothing. I'll be humming it all day, and suddenly remember the context at, like, 3AM. I promise to update this post accordingly.

I think it might be an ad jingle, which would explain why it's not turning up online easily.
posted by ErikaB at 2:35 PM on June 10, 2010

Here's an example with fate but without kismet from 1840 "Chance, Destiny, Fate,—call it what you will," cried Gerald, obeying the stronger impulse of his feelings, and clasping her once more to his beating heart." From a novel called The Canadian Brothers

I still think it's just a really old cliche or stock phrase.
posted by interplanetjanet at 3:03 PM on June 10, 2010

I have a strong suspicion this may, in English at least, derive from Roger l'Estrange's 17th century translation of Seneca's epistles (as Seneca's Morals). In Chapter XXIV:

We have, however, this comfort in our misfortune; we have the same nature, the same Providence, and we carry our virtues along with us. And this blessing we owe to that almighty Power, call it what you will; either a God, or an Incorporeal Reason, a Divine Spirit, or Fate, and the unchangeable Course of causes and effects: it is, however, so ordered, that nothing can be taken from us but what we Can well spare: and that which is most magnificent and valuable continues with us.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find another source for this quote in the other full translation online. Poking around in a few others I kept finding the epistles on either side of this one in l'Estrange's numbering, but not this one precisely to identify the Latin original.

But I believe (a dangerous supposition) this would have been an essential reference at least through the 19th century known to many educated men and from there passed into common parlance. L'Estrange was influential.
posted by dhartung at 11:29 PM on June 10, 2010

OK, it's actually the letter(s) to Helvia. This is an alternate translation:

Wherever we betake ourselves, two things that are most admirable will go with us -- universal Nature and our own virtue. Believe me, this was the intention of the great creator of the universe, whoever he may be, whether an all-powerful God, or incorporeal Reason contriving vast works, or divine Spirit pervading all things from the smallest to the greatest with uniform energy, or Fate and an unalterable sequence of causes clinging one to the other -- this, I say, was his intention, that only the most worthless of our possessions should fall under the control of another. All that is best for a man lies beyond the power of other men, who can neither give it nor take it away.

And here the Latin:

Haec etiam si quis singula parum iudicat efficacia ad consolandum exulem, utraque in unum conlata fatebitur plurimum posse. Quantulum enim est quod perdimus! duo quae pulcherrima sunt quocumque nos moverimus sequentur, natura communis et propria virtus.

Id actum est, mihi crede, ab illo, quisquis formator universi fuit, sive ille deus est potens omnium, sive incorporalis ratio ingentium operum artifex, sive divinus spiritus per omnia maxima ac minima aequali intentione diffusus, sive fatum et inmutabilis causarum inter se cohaerentium series -- id, inquam, actum est ut in alienum arbitrium nisi vilissima quaeque non caderent.

That last may, of course, not even be an original observation (comparing differing philosophies of life), uncannily as it foresees the whole of Western thought, but I do believe that l'Estrange's version of it contributed greatly to the English idiom, especially because of his (somewhat spurious) "call it what you will".

I'm digging this Stoic stuff. Just what I need right now.
posted by dhartung at 12:20 AM on June 11, 2010

Thanks for all the research everyone! I'm gonna tentatively say that it's probably not a quote after all. Even though I'm still totally positive that it is. Oh well. It's good to have enduring mysteries.
posted by rusty at 8:11 AM on June 11, 2010

The rhetorical device in question is called anaphora. It is as old as language.

Browsing through this this list of rhetorical devices, I think there is a case to be made that the 'call it what you will' could be an example of paraprosdokian, when the last element in the series is not like the others.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry at 10:36 AM on June 11, 2010