"Be careful what you wish for" (1976)

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:33 AM -0400 6/5/05, bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR--166,000 Google hits, 44,500 Google Groups hits
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>How can there be so many hits, and this only goes back to 1976??
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And then there's the even ruefuller dictum, which I've encountered as
a bathroom graffito (USC, fall 1972) but I assume has a more
distinguished lineage:

"I wish I could be what I was when I wished I could be what I am."

(Put *that* in your tensed modal logic and smoke it!)

Larry

>It's a headline in Sunday's New York Post.
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>(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
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>DC to LA, Her Way
>Susan Gailey. The Washington Post (1974-Current file). Washington,
>D.C.: Dec 10, 1978. p. SM5 (1 page)
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>(NEWSPAPERARCHIVE)
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>  The Chronicle TelegramMonday, May 03, 1976 Elyria, Ohio
>...HOLLYWOOD (UPI) "Be CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR." said Jill St
>John, "YOU're.....imag- ine that would improve it "BE CAREFUL WHAT
>YOU WISH said Jill St. John..