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[Fred Shapiro]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote:

> "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> writes:
> >>>>>
> The Mike Todd movie of "Around the World in Eighty Days" (released around
> 1955) shows a barroom scene which includes a "free lunch", complete with Red
> Skelton playing the part of a freeloader.  I have no evidence whether bars in
> the late 19th Century offered "free lunches".
> <<<<<
> Barry?

I'm not Barry, but there is no question that free lunches were around in
the 19th century.  The OED has citations for the term back to 1854.  The
point, however, is that the slogan "There's no such thing as a free lunch"
is not documented before 1938/49.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Public Services     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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