[Iris]

There is a following sentence.

“There is no man so bad but has a secret respect for the good.”

I have 2 question.

1.”So bad”in this sentence is adjective, why is this “bad” not put in front of “man” grammatically?

2.If this sentence is “There is no bad man but has a secret respect for the good.”, is it different with the original meaning change?

[Ben]

Are you sure the sentence is “There is no man so bad but has a secret respect for the good”?

It does not sound natural to me.

[Kimberly]

I agree this sentence is incorrect and doesn’t make sense.
It may have been translated…
However, we say “so” bad to mean extremely bad and because we’re using “so”, “bad” is placed after. Adjectives generally come before a noun but not always. 😉

[Iris]

Thank you for your explanation! If you know any other example, please let me know 🤗

[Pedro]

The sentence is incorrect. I agree with Ben and Kimberly.

[Kimberly]

I think the meaning of this sentence should be:

There is no man so bad that he doesn’t have a secret respect for goodness.

善良さに対する秘密の尊敬を持たないほど悪い人はいません。

Hope this translates well…

[PLouis]

Quick search in google books shows this sentence word-for-word under the pen of the prolifically published writer, Thomas Fuller. It goes back as far as 1732, and is repeatedly published as-is in subsequent centuries. There are numerous online discussions of this somewhat quaint construction with “but,” but it certainly persists to this day… so we really can’t call it incorrect. At worst it is a correct sentence sporting an ascot or monocle.

[Iris]

Thank you for an interesting information! English is a quite profound language, and that’s exactly why it is very interesting !

Btw, Japanese translation…
どんな悪人でも、善なるものにひそかに敬意を払わない者はいない。

[PLouis]

You are welcome! Japanese is just as profound (and difficult!).

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