Mark Twain? Chauncey Depew? Big Jim Watson? Joseph Hodges Choate? Anonymous?
Dear Quote Investigator: New Year’s resolutions often feature plans for more exercise. Mark Twain was once asked if he engaged in exercise, and he supposedly said:
I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.
But this same joke is also credited to Chauncey Depew, a United States Senator and renowned after-dinner speaker, who reportedly said:
I get my exercise acting as a pallbearer to my friends who exercise.
While searching I found that this quip was phrased in many other different ways. Could you determine if Twain, Depew, or someone else originated this funny saying?
Quote Investigator: The earliest example of this anecdote found by QI is dated 1926. It appeared in a syndicated newspaper column about health titled “Play Safe in Taking Physical Exercise” written by a medical doctor named Royal S. Copeland. The original raconteur was anonymous, and the story was labeled a “ridiculous yarn” [RCPE]:
Somebody told a story about an old man so remarkably well that a newspaper reporter asked why he had lived so long and kept so strong. “I suppose it is because you take systematic exercise,” said the reporter.
The startling reply of the old gentleman was, “The only exercise I take is acting as pall-bearer to my friends who have indulged in strenuous exercise!”
This is a ridiculous yarn, but it has in it a suggestion of value. Exercise is useful so long as it really is exercise and not violent and difficult work.
Too many athletes die of heart or blood vessel trouble. Too much strain on the organs of circulation will do real and lasting harm.
In 1929 a variant of the joke was attributed to ‘Big Jim’ Watson who was described as a “260-pound senator from Indiana.” Watson was a former athlete who had ceased exercising. In the following excerpt the phrase “cow pasture pool shooting” is a jocular description for golf [JWRG]:
“When my friends urge me to take up golf,” he remarks, “I tell them I get plenty of exercise by acting as pallbearer to my cow pasture pool shooting friends who die of heart disease and over-exertion.”
By 1930 the humorous remark was credited to Chauncey Depew, and by 1950 the jest was assigned to Mark Twain. Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
