FW: Jokes as Sources of Phrases

[Frank Abate]

Responding to what Jonathon G and Fred S said (cc'd below):

It seems unlikely to me that the punchline of a joke would be the
source/first citation for a phrase/idiom.  Punchlines very often pick up an
existing phrase or cliche and use it in a novel or surprising way (hence
part of the humor), but some of the humor is lost if the punchline does not
play off of an established expression.

Of course, a joke may well serve to popularize an expression -- but to
originate it?  The evidence of a joke would make me want to look further
back.

Speculatively,

Frank Abate

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On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Jonathon Green wrote:

> 1968 Legman Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1972) vol. 1 199:
> A little rabbit whose method with his girlfriends is 'Wham bam, thank you,
> Mam' [Calif. 1942]

So it looks like the phrase may have originated in a joke.  I wonder how
many others had joke origins.  Legman indicates elsewhere that "don't make
waves" originated as the punchline of a scatological joke.  My researches
suggest that "there's no such thing as a free lunch" originated as the
punchline of an economists' joke.

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
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