Tracing Quotations
Lilian Braithwaite? James Agate? Walter Winchell? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A prominent drama critic in London once told a top actress that she was the second most beautiful woman in the United Kingdom. The critic expected her to ask for the identity of the most beautiful woman, but she wittily replied that she would …
Continue reading “Repartee Origin: You Are the Second Most Beautiful Woman in the United Kingdom”
George Bernard Shaw? Blanche Patch? Archibald Henderson? Bennett Cerf? Walter Winchell? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A visitor to the home of a famous wit expected to find vases filled with beautiful cut flowers, but there were none. The wit explained the absence by making a comically grotesque comparison between cut flowers and decapitated people. …
Continue reading “Flowers: Don’t Cut Off Their Heads and Stick Them in Pots”
Gladys Parker? Don Marquis? Walter Winchell? Uncle Ezra? Phyllis Diller? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A collection of Christmas season quips employ wordplay based on “past” and “present”. Here are two examples: What I like about Christmas is that you can make people forget the past with a present. At Christmas time youngsters want the past …
Continue reading “During Christmas People Will Forget the Past With a Present”
Quintilian? William Cobbett? John Cooke? Charles Haddon Spurgeon? W. E. Smith? Walter Winchell? Rollin D. Salisbury? William H. Taft? Dear Quote Investigator: A maxim about the goal of communication expresses an ideal that is desirable but nearly impossible to achieve. Here are three versions: (1) You must not only speak so that people can understand …
Alice Roosevelt Longworth? Marie Corelli? Jane Burr? Rose Guggenheim Winslow? Nancy Hale? Ruth Hanna McCormick? Walter Winchell? Ethel Barrymore? Grace Hodgson Flandrau? Dear Quote Investigator: A U.S. politician running for president was once described as a “little man on a wedding cake” and a “bridegroom on the wedding cake”. This ridicule harmed his campaign, and …
Continue reading “Like a Little Bridegroom On a Wedding Cake”
Oscar Wilde? Felix Grendon? Percy Colson? Walter Winchell? Reader’s Digest? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A well-known moral injunction states that one should forgive one’s enemies. A humorous twist suggests that one should grant forgiveness because it produces annoyance in one’s adversaries. This notion has been attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde. Would you please …
Continue reading “Always Forgive Your Enemies; Nothing Annoys Them So Much”
A. H. Reginald Buller? Resident of Brighton? E. V. Lucas? Carolyn Wells? Walter Winchell? Robert Conquest? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a comical limerick about a “family” named Stein. The three referents were prominent writer Gertrude Stein, influential sculpture Jacob Epstein, and famous scientist Albert Einstein. Wordplay was used to split “Stein” from “Gertrude”, …
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Will Rogers? Ray Thompson? Walter Winchell? Milton Berle? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A talkative pet parrot can cause enormous embarrassment when it publicly recites phrases spoken in private. A comedian offered the following guidance: Live your life so you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell your family parrot to the town gossip. Popular entertainer Will Rogers …
Continue reading “Live That You Wouldn’t Be Ashamed To Sell the Family Parrot To the Town Gossip”
Edgar Bergen? Charlie McCarthy? Florian ZaBach? Walter Winchell? Earl Wilson? George Gobel? Sam Levenson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: During my younger years when I was slow to perform a boring task my parents sometimes scolded me by proclaiming a cliché about hard work. Eventually, I came across a funny riposte: It might be true that …
Continue reading “Hard Work Never Killed Anyone But Some of Us Don’t Like To Take Chances”
George M. Cohan? P. T. Barnum? Mae West? Elinor Glyn? Babe Ruth? Damon Runyon? James J. Johnston? Charley Murphy? Max Schmeling? Walter Winchell? Oscar Wilde? Samuel Johnson? Ed Sullivan? Dear Quote Investigator: A person once planned to write an article or book containing derogatory material about a celebrity. The unruffled response of the celebrity to …
Continue reading “Say Anything You Like About Me, But Spell My Name Right”