Photo: Dag Terje Filip EndresenI’m back to inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research.
Mantonat asked:
Any idea as to where the phrase “couch potato” originated?
The Oxford English Dictionary says that “potato” here is apparently a pun based on “boob tuber,” but it could also be a simple association with the slang use of “vegetable.” The earliest citation for “couch potato” in the OED is the Los Angeles Times in 1979.
Drew asked:
Was “Statistics are like ladies of the night … Once laid out you can do anything with them” really Mark Twain?
No.
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
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“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
You have previously suggested that Orwell is not the source of the “rough men” quote:
http://freakonomics.com/2009/12/17/quotes-uncovered-violence-and-enemies/
“Caplewood”, on July 17, 2009, hypothesized that the quote was made up by columnist and film critic Richard Grenier:
http://williamgibsonboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/823104731/m/492106633?r=202105143#202105143
“The earliest appearance in Nexis of any minor variation of the quote is a 1993 article by Richard Grenier in the Washington Times. Nexis has a CNN transcript form 16 days later in which Pat Buchannan repeats the quote. From that point shows up in all sorts of publications, becoming even more frequent after 9/11.
I think Grenier made it up, but I don’t think that can be proved.”
Grenier uses the phrase “rough men” and quotes both Orwell and Kipling in this review of “Breaker Morant”:
“The Uniforms That Guard Us”
Richard Grenier — May 1981
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-uniforms-that-guard-usrdquo/
Following up on Caplewood’s hypothesis:
http://williamgibsonboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/823104731/m/492106633?r=202105143#202105143
Richard Grenier wrote in a May 3, 1993, column:
“As writer George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf.”
Source:
Richard Grenier
“Carrying victimization a step further. (how those with social values and morals have to pay the price for others’ irresponsible sexual behavior)”
Insight on the News 9.n18 (May 3, 1993): pp21(2).
It is easy to push back the OED date on “couch potato”:
Cholesterol cures: from almonds and antioxidants to garlic, golf, …
Richard Trubo – 1958 – 339 pages -
“But some studies suggest that being a hard-core couch potato can be hard on the coronary arteries — “
Thanks for your valuable comment, Steve. When I looked into the “rough men” quote last month I came to a similar conclusion. The modern statement appears to originate in a Washington Times article dated April 6, 1993 (available in NewsBank). Richard Grenier wrote the following:
As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
It is important to note that Grenier did not use quotation marks around the statement of the view that he ascribed to Orwell. I hypothesize that Grenier was using his own words to present a summary of Orwell’s viewpoint. Later commentators placed the statement into quotation marks and introduced various modifications to the passage.
Thanks for sharing your information. The 1993 Washington Times article was found independently by the great researcher Bill Mullins last year. Yet, I’ll credit Caplewood who apparently found it in 2009.
Where or who did “talk to the hand” come from?
Regarding the Orwell quote — Looking at wikiquote, it would seem that there is a similar line (Grenier may have been referring to) In Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism”:
“Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.”
Re #9: Yeah, easy if you believe Google Books dates all their books correctly. I know you know better than that, Eric.
Re #10: “I hypothesize that Grenier was using his own words to present a summary of Orwell’s viewpoint.”
And certainly Orwell was far from the first to express the idea. See for instance Kipling’s “Tommy”, 1892:
“Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll”