Sandburg "Slang" Quote

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Fri Aug 5 10:37:34 UTC 2005


Fred, offhand I can't identify the original date of the quotation. I'll try to dig something up.

JL

Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Re: Sandburg "Slang" Quote
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 4 Aug 2005, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>
> This is directed at Jon Lighter and other slang scholars: Has anyone come
> across evidence of the Carl Sandburg "slang" quote earlier than the
> citation below?
>
> Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to
> work.
> Carl Sandburg, quoted in Troy (N.Y.) Times Record, 31 July 1943

I did a little more research and found the following earlier citation:

Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to
work.
Carl Sandburg, quoted in Maurice H. Weseen, Dictionary of American
Slang (1934)

Fred Shapiro


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


---------------------------------
 Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page



More information about the Ads-l mailing list