Moderated message...

[Michael Hennebry]

On Tue, 21 Jan 2014, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:

> On 01/21/2014 10:43 AM, Michael Hennebry wrote:
>> On Tue, 21 Jan 2014, Frank Murphy wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 20:44:07 -0600
>>> "Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mellertson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
>>>> for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
>>>
>>> Where do you get them!
>>
>> I doubt he knows.
>> Methinks it predates the internet.
>> Unless he is the author,
>> it belongs in quotes even if he does not know the author.
>>
> It was inspired by a line in one of the Fortune answers files, but 
> it is not a direct quote of either the line in the fortune file or 
> from the source of the entry. Therefore it should not be quoted. Not 
> there is a quoter from Tolkien that reads:

I am aware of the ultimate inspiration,
also that the "wizards" were really one wizard.

> "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and 
> quick to anger."
>
> There is also a version of my signature that reads:
>
> "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and 
> taste good with Ketchup!"
>
> But I like my version better. I am trying to remember when I started 
> using it - it has to be more then 5 years ago.

Your change required less intellectual effort than a translation.
Translations do require attribution.
Absent the slightest indication that the saying was not entirely yours,
anyone whose job is is to decide plagiarism cases would decide against you.
That said, almost anything, e.g. "derived from a line in a Fortune file",
would be sufficient to defeat such a charge.

-- 
Michael   hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu
Iluvatar is the better part of Valar.