Dorothy Parker? Lillian Day? Alexander Woollcott? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: U.S. poet, critic, and fiction writer Dorothy Parker was famous for her witticisms. When discussing a prom, she said something like the following:
If all the young women who attended were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Would you please explore the provenance of this expression?
Reply from Quote Investigator: This quip was based on a popular family of expressions that were designed to help readers envision enormous quantities of items by placing them end to end and describing the resultant length. For example, in 1843 a newspaper in Liverpool England proudly described the massive number of pages produced by their printing press. Boldface added by QI:1
One day last month the steam-presses of the Liverpool Mercury threw off so many impressions of that paper, that if all the printed columns were laid end to end without any intervening space, they would reach over hill and dale, through town and country, the whole distance from Liverpool to London.
Below is an overview showing humorous variant statements with dates and source data:
1927 Aug: If all the college boys who slept in class were placed end to end they would be much more comfortable (“Judge” magazine acknowledged the “Cornell Widow”)
1927 Dec: If all the people who stay out most of the night were laid end to end they wouldn’t get up until noon.(“Judge” magazine)
1931: If all Ruby’s lovers were laid end to end, it would put them in a very awkward position. (Advertisement in “The Publisher’s Weekly” for a book by Lillian Day)
1934: Wholesale libel on a Yale prom. If all the girls attending it were laid end to end she wouldn’t be at all surprised. (Alexander Woollcott credited Dorothy Parker)
1945: If all the girls who attended the Yale Prom this year were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. (Samuel Hopkins Adams credited Dorothy Parker)
1945 Jul: If all your lovers were laid end to end, I’d be very much pleased. (“The New Yorker” magazine acknowledged the operetta “Marinka”)
1967: Princeton prom: If all the girls were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised. (Corey Ford credited Dorothy Parker)
1968: If all those sweet young things present were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. (Robert E. Drennan credited Dorothy Parker)
1974: If all the girls at Smith and Bennington were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised. (Scott Meredith credited Dorothy Parker)
2003: If all the girls attending it were laid end to end … I wouldn’t be at all surprised. (Dominique Enright credited Dorothy Parker)
Here are selected detailed citations in chronological order.
In August 1927 “Judge” magazine of New York printed the following quip. The magazine acknowledged the “Cornell Widow” which was a humor magazine at Cornell University:2
If all the college boys who slept in class were placed end to end they would be much more comfortable — CORNELL WIDOW
In December 1927, another joke in this family appeared in “Judge” magazine:3
If all the people who stay out most of the night were laid end to end they wouldn’t get up until noon.
In 1931 “The Publisher’s Weekly” published an advertisement for the book “Kiss and Tell” by Lillian Day which included the following quip:4
“If all Ruby’s lovers were laid end to end, it would put them in a very awkward position.”
In 1934 drama critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott published a collection of essays titled “While Rome Burns”. The book included a profile of Dorothy Parker in which Woollcott ascribed the joke under examination to Parker:5
Then I remember her comment on one friend who had lamed herself while in London. It was Mrs. Parker who voiced the suspicion that this poor lady had injured herself while sliding down a barrister. And there was that wholesale libel on a Yale prom. If all the girls attending it were laid end to end, Mrs. Parker said, she wouldn’t be at all surprised.
A separate Quote Investigator article tracing the barrister joke is available here.
In 1945 Samuel Hopkins Adams published a biography of Alexander Woollcott which included a version of this quip:6
Half the wisecracks of the next ten years were attributed to the Algonquin. Here were conceived, by common but not too reliable rumor, Dorothy Parker’s quip: “If all the girls who attended the Yale Prom this year were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised”.
In July 1945 “The New Yorker” published a review of Wolcott Gibbs of the operetta “Marinka” which printed a joke from the work:7
… a revision of a joke, originally attributed to Dorothy Parker, that now reads “If all your lovers were laid end to end, I’d be very much pleased.”
In 1967 Corey Ford published a memoir titled “The Time of Laughter” which credited Parker with an instance. The setting was a prom at Princeton instead of a Yale prom:8
Then of course there was her statistical survey of a Princeton prom: “If all the girls were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
In 1968 Robert E. Drennan published “The Algonquin Wits” which credited Parker with another instance:9
Reporting on a Yale prom, Mrs. Parker said, “If all those sweet young things present were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
In 1974 Scott Meredith published a biography of playwright George S. Kaufman. Meredith credited Parker with a quip mentioning different schools:10
There was a certain amount of rivalry between them: Kaufman once said gloomily, “Everything I’ve ever said will be credited to Dorothy Parker.” The dark-haired, pretty writer was also well-known for lines like, “If all the girls at Smith and Bennington were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised,” and, “One more drink and I’d have been under the host,” which Kaufman conceded were funny but which he really didn’t consider ladylike.
A separate Quote Investigator article tracing the “one more drink” joke is available here.
In 2003 Dominique Enright published the compilation “Wicked Wit of Women” which contained this entry:11
If all the girls attending it were laid end to end … I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), referring to the Yale Prom, 1934 (attr.)
In conclusion, Alexander Woollcott credited Dorothy Parker with this quip in 1934, and this evidence was substantive. QI has not found any close matches before 1934. The phrasing of the quip in subsequent citations has varied.
Image Notes: Picture of a fallen sequence of dominoes from Tom Wilson at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized. Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Fred Shapiro whose inquiry about several quotations attributed to Dorothy Parker led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1843 May 5, Liverpool Mercury, Multum in Parvo, Quote Page 3, Column 3, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1927 August 20, Judge, The Cheer Leaders, Quote Page 25, Column 3, Judge Publishing Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1927 December 17, Judge, The Quest, Quote Page 8, Column 3, Judge Publishing Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1931 September 26, The Publisher’s Weekly, Volume 120, Number 13, (Advertisement for the book “Kiss and Tell” by Lillian Day), Quote Page 1437, R. W. Bowker, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1934, While Rome Burns by Alexander Woollcott, Chapter: Some Neighbors: IV: Our Mrs. Parker, Quote Page 149, Viking Press, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1945, A. Woollcott: His Life and His World by Samuel Hopkins Adams, Quote Page 121, Reynal & Hitchcock, New York. (Google Books snippet; Verified on paper) ↩︎
- 1945 July 28, The New Yorker, Section: The Theatre, Ho Hum, The Hapsburgs by Wolcott Gibbs, (Review of the operetta “Marinka”), Start Page 40, Quote Page 40, Column 3, The F. R. Publishing Corporation, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1967, The Time of Laughter by Corey Ford, Chapter 4: Taverns of the Twenties, Quote Page 54, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1968, The Algonquin Wits, Edited by Robert E. Drennan, Chapter: Dorothy Parker, Quote Page 113, Citadel Press, New York. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
- 1974, George S. Kaufman and His Friends by Scott Meredith, Chapter 9: The Parting, Quote Page 139, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2003, Wicked Wit of Women, Compiled by Dominique Enright, Chapter: Don’t Do It in the Street and Frighten the Horses, Quote Page 24, Michael O’Mara Books Limited, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎