Bad news

Posted by Masakim March 18, 2003In reply to Bad news posted by R. Berg on March 18, 2003

Can you please tell me the origin and/or meaning of the phrase, "Bad news travels fast?" Thank you, much...Saxon

I've heard "Good news travels fast." The saying means that favorable (or unfavorable) information spreads quickly because people readily transmit it in a chain of speakers and listeners.

"Bad news travels fast": 2340 hits on Google
"Good news travels fast": 1650 hits on Google

Sad and heuy tydynges be easly blowen abroade be they neuer so vaine and false and they be also sone beleued. (R. Taverner, tr., _Erasmus' Adages_, 1539)
Euill news neuer commeth to late. (E. Hellowes, _Guevara's Epistles_, 1574)
Euill news flie faster still than good. (T. Kyd, _The Spanish Tragedy_, 1592)
Ill news, madam, Are swallow-wing'd, but what's good walks on crutches. (P. Massinger, _Picture_, 1629)
All these bills . brought . this morning. Ill news travels fast. (T. Holcroft, _The Road to Ruin_, 1792)
There's a true saying that nothing travels so fast as ill news. (C. Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, 1843-44)
"Where'd you get it [a knife]?" "On the Plains of Philippi." "Bad news travels fast," said Hercules. (W. Irwin, _Julius Caesar Murder Case_, 1935)