Quote (Cascadian @ Jun 6 2022 11:13am)
I try to avoid drinking from poisoned wells.
Funny you should say that, but....
Etymology:
The phrase "poisoning the well" alludes to the medieval European time that the black plague was caused by Jews poisoning town wells.
The phrase was first used in its relevant sense by Cardinal John Henry Newman during a controversy with Charles Kingsley:
"What I insist upon here…is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut the ground from under my feet;—to poison by anticipation the public mind against me, John Henry Newman, and to infuse into the imaginations of my readers, suspicion and mistrust of every thing that I may say in reply to him. This I call poisoning the wells."