“Quote... Unquote” NEWSLETTER
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THE“Quote... Unquote” NEWSLETTER Publisher & Editor: Nigel Rees Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2007 AMBITIONS, ASPIRATIONS, DESIRES I think it was when Antony Jay was working on the first edition of his Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (1996) that the question arose as to who had said, ‘The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations’ (Q314). Tony thought he had heard it attributed to Adam Smith but had not found it. Geoffrey Wheatcroft said he had heard the phrase given as ‘poverty of ambition’ and attributed to both those old Labour Party stalwarts, Aneurin Bevan and Ernest Bevin. It would seem, however, that Bevin tended to quote it as ‘poverty of desire.’ And that is where things rested until the ever-persistent Joe Kralich googled his way to a book called Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History by John Callaghan, Steven Fielding and Steve Ludlam (2003). These authors refer to Bevin’s annoyance at poor people’s ‘poverty of desire’ and note that the phrase ‘was borrowed until he resigned at the outbreak of war in 1914. Until from John Burns [the redoubtable Labour MP] who in a now, the Burns remark that is in all the quotation books is 1902 pamphlet – “Brains Better than Bets or Beer” – ar- this one: gued that “the curse of the working class is the fewness of their wants, the poverty of their desires”.’ They further ‘I have seen the Mississippi. That is muddy water. I note that their information came from Chris Waters, British have seen the St Lawrence. That is crystal water. Socialists and the Politics of Popular Culture 1884-1914 But the Thames is liquid history.’ (1990) published by the Manchester University Press. This was quoted in a Daily Mail report (25 January 1943) This clue enabled us to find that the pamphlet was some- at Burns’s death. The remark was reputedly made to an times given the title ‘The Straight Tip to Workers: Brains American who had spoken disparagingly of the River Better Than Bets or Beer’ and was published by the Clarion Thames. There are various versions of it. Denis Bridge Press. Now, all we need is to find a copy to check the commented (1994) that he used to live near Burns on North wording. Meanwhile, Chris Waters provides us with the Side, Clapham Common, London. His father’s version of complete remark: the Burns remark went: ‘The Mississippi is dirty water. The St Lawrence is cold, dirty water. But the Thames is ‘The curse of the working class is the fewness of liquid history.’ their wants, the poverty of their desires, the over- loading of a few sensuous tastes, the absence of a The version I prefer is the one uttered with Burns’s char- varied set of elevated and healthy desires.’ acteristic dropped aitch: ‘The Thames is liquid ’istory!’ Burns (1858-1943) is usually described as the first work- Series 40 of the radio show (which will include the ing-man to become a Cabinet minister. Born in London of 400th edition) will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Scottish parents – ‘I am not ashamed to say that I am the in the UK and streamed on the Internet, somewhere son of a washerwoman’ – he aligned himself with the Lib- in the middle of 2007. It will also be in a new time erals in 1906 and served as President of the Board of Trade slot. More details in due course. ISSN 1353-2952 Copyright © 2007 Nigel Rees Q20 Until now the earliest attribution to Lord Chester- field of ‘The pleasure [of sex] is momentary, the posi- tion is ridiculous, and the expense is damnable’ was in a 1970 issue of Nature. Before that there were only vague allusions in Evelyn Waugh (1954) and D.H. Lawrence (1928). Now Yale finds it directly attributed in Somerset Maugham’s Christmas Holiday (1939). Q433 Some years ago we agonized over the remark ‘I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better!’ but could not confirm the usual attribution to Sophie Tucker. Yale has now found it ascribed to one Beatrice Kaufman in The Washington Post (12 May 1937) and notes that this is ‘years before any evidence linking it to Tucker’. Q3545 One of the million remarks lazily ascribed to Mark Twain (though I had got it into my head that it was H.L. Mencken) – ‘The only person entitled to use the impe- rial “we” in speaking of himself is a king, an editor, and a man with a tapeworm’ – was attributed to Robert FOR GOD, FOR COUNTRY AND FOR YALE! G. Ingersoll in the Los Angeles Times (6 October 1914). The above line is said to have been given as a crossword And a couple more discoveries that have not appeared on puzzle clue in The New York Times (answer: ‘anticlimax’) our queries list ... Although I had found the non-Conan but that is not referred to in the newly-arrived Yale Book Doyle quotation ‘Quick, Watson, the needle’ in P.G. of Quotations (although the song from which it comes Wodehouse (1922) and a film (1939), along comes Yale duly is). In fact, the long-awaited arrival of the Yale Book with the news that the line was spoken by ‘a Sherlock is anything but an anticlimax. I had been aware that Fred Holmes impersonator’ in Herbert Blossom’s operetta The Shapiro and his team were beavering away for several Red Mill (1906) ... years and I have to say straightaway that they have pro- As for ‘Wake up and smell the coffee’, Yale asserts that duced a worthy competitor to the Oxford and to Bartlett. this catchphrase was popularized by the columnist Ann The Yale BQ scores initially, simply by starting from Landers, as in the Chicago Tribune (21 December 1955), scratch rather than being an nth revision and although the but that ‘an earlier anonymous usage is found in the Chi- ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ quotation is invoked cago Daily Tribune (18 January 1943)’. in relation to earlier dictionaries, there is a welcome fresh- Now, the only quibble I would have concerns the number ness and originality of approach in this one. I think where of ‘quotations’ from recent pop songs and especially rap Fred Shapiro achieves most is in having thoroughly stud- ‘lyrics’. To my mind, just because words from a song are ied the second generation of quotation books – in which familiar through frequent performance does not necessar- he kindly includes some of mine, as well as the estimable ily make them quotations. And one has to remember the Library of Congress Respectfully Quoted – books that dig dreadful example of the 1999 edition of the Oxford DQ, a little deeper and more rigorously than the older dictio- stuffing in remarks and supposedly quotable lyrics from naries have either the space or the inclination to do. the Spice Girls. What a surprise that they have mostly Above all, the Yale BQ is the first major dictionary of gone from the most recent edition. quotations in which one feels that the opportunities of But, anyway, as I say, a very welcome new entry into the modern research – I mean online ones, of course – have quotation market and I know which book I will probably been thoroughly explored, almost on a quote by quote be reaching for first in the immediate future. basis. It is no secret that in this Newsletter, for example, the method used by Joe Kralich and others to solve so many previously intractable quotation queries is pains- ALBUM TIME takingly to use google, google books and other search As ever, Jaap Engelsmaan in Amsterdam keeps us on our engines to achieve their results. The Yale BQ also scores linguistic toes. So fascinated have I always been by the through its use of the new online newspaper and maga- invitation to sex – ‘Come up and see my etchings’ – that zine archives, particularly that which allows one to re- I have failed to note the similarly nudging invitation from trieve information from small-town American newspapers a man to a woman, ‘Come and have a look at my photo- going back to the 19th century. graph album / stamp collection.’ This apparently passed by Eric Partridge and Paul Beale completely. The ‘etch- Here are just a few examples of how these new methods ings’ remark, as though he were an artist plotting to se- have turned up useful nuggets of information on some of duce her, was probably established by the 1920s, at least. Quote ... Unquote’s problem queries: January 2007 2 The “Quote ... Unquote” Newsletter A bit puzzling why the man should choose ‘etchings’ rather ter in a scrap-yard. The title story sees our narrator iron- than anything else, but there we are. There is a James Thurber ing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress cartoon of a man and a woman in a hotel lobby, to which the with one lung and a Manchester accent.’ (Q3628.) caption is: ‘You wait here and I’ll bring the etchings down.’ But Jaap spotted this in Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and MY HUCKLEBERRY FRIEND Ale, Chap. 26 (1930), Rosie speaking: From time to time on the radio show I like to tease my ‘When we’d finished our supper Harry said: “Well, guests by asking them to identify the songs from which what about it?” ‘detached lyrics’ come. I like to think that disconnected ‘“What about what?” I said. from the music and the context, they may be hard to source.