"there is no such thing as bad publicity" (Was Re: It's a case for Fred Shapiro!)

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 12:49 PM 1/24/2001 EST, George Thompson wrote:
>"...there is no such thing as bad publicity."  Martha
>Hailey DuBose, Women of Mystery. . . , NY, 2000/2001, p. 426....
>
>        How early can this be dated?
>

A quick scroll through the 291 occurrences of "publicity" in OED2 reveals
one example of this saying, not an especially early one I suppose, but
perhaps of interest. It's part of the entry for knock v.:

1958 Spectator 12 Dec. 865/1 On the last page he protests about `the growing
tendency in some newspapers today to write only "knocking" stories about
stars as big as Tommy'. But..almost any publicity is good publicity: you can
knock around the clock and the moon-faced masses will only hear applause.



Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu