Quote: everybody talks about the weather (1897) (antedating attrib Charles Dudley Warner 1901, attrib Mark Twain 1915)

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>:

> Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
>
> Quotes falsely attributed to Mark Twain are commonplace. This famous
> quote about the weather is surprising because it is possible that
> Twain did say it. Ralph Keyes writing in "The Quote Verifier" credits
> Twain. Uncertainty arises from the ambiguous nature of the first
> version of the saying that is currently known.
>
> Citation: 1897 August 27, Hartford Courant, Page 8, Connecticut.
> (Cited in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations by Suzy
> Platt.)
>
> A well known American writer said once that, while everybody talked
> about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it.
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/73/1982.html
>
> Who was this American writer of renown? Fred Shapiro in "The Yale Book
> of Quotations" says "The 'well-known American writer' is usually taken
> to be Twain, but the writer could also have been Charles Dudley
> Warner, who was the editor of the Hartford Courant in 1897." Keyes
> says "Henry McNutty, a retired Courant editor, believes this was a
> little in joke, Warner's tip of the hat to Twain, who continually made
> quips in conversation that later showed up in print." Keyes also
> points to a 1923 memoir of a journalist named Robert Underwood Johnson
> who knew Twain and who attributes a version of the quote to Twain.
>
> Below we present some early attributions. I could not find this
> information in the ADS list archive, WikiQuote, or at Barry Popik's
> website. These attributions do not resolve the open question, but
> perhaps the confusion can now be moved to a higher level.
>
> The January 1901 issue of Harper's magazine contains a profile of
> Charles Dudley Warner who had died the previous year on October 20,
> 1900. A variant of the quip about the weather is attributed to Warner
> in the profile. This variant differs enough from the canonical version
> that some readers may not consider it to be a valid variant. However,
> I suspect that it is based on the saying as altered by the profile
> writer's imperfect memory. In the excerpt below "he" refers to Warner.
>
> Citation: 1901 January, Harper's Magazine, Vol. CII, No. DCVIII,
> Editor's Easy Chair, Page 320, Harper's Magazine Co.
>
> When people were once tried almost beyond endurance by the most
> exasperating of winters he said, "Everybody is talking about the
> weather; why doesn't somebody do something?" and this, with its subtle
> irony of human futility, is perhaps one of the most representative
> examples of his wit; but his humor was an aroma which interfused all
> his thought, and filled his page with the constant surprise of its
> presence.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=wucvAAAAMAAJ&q=%22weather+why%22#v=snippet&q=%22weather%20why%22&f=false
>
> An identical passage to the one above appears in a 1904 book about
> Charles Dudley Warner in the Contemporary Men of Letters Series
> published by McClure, Phillips & Co. A version closer to the modern
> saying is credited to Warner in 1912.
>
> Citation: 1904, Charles Dudley Warner by Annie Fields, Page 206,
> McClure, Phillips & Co., New York.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=4aUQAAAAYAAJ&q=weather#v=snippet&q=weather&f=false
>
> Citation: 1912 July 20, Hartford Courant, About the Weather, Page 8,
> Hartford, Connecticut. (Google News Archive snippet view only. Not
> verified in ProQuest database)
>
> Mr. Warner once remarked that everybody talks about the weather but
> nobody seems to do anything about it.
>
> http://bit.ly/8Ak8N8
>
>
> The first attribution to Mark Twain that I could locate was in a
> Mormon publication in 1915. Another example appears in 1917.
>
> Citation: 1915 July, Young Woman's Journal, Vol. 26, No. 7, The Glint
> of the American Eagle By Ruth M. Bell, Page 416, Young Women's Mutual
> Improvement Association, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
>
> Yes: as Mark Twain said about the weather: "Everybody talks about it,
> but nobody does anything."
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=hVMoAAAAYAAJ&q=Twain#v=snippet&q=Twain&f=false
>
> Citation: 1917 October 15, American Association for Study and
> Prevention of Infant Mortality, Transactions of the Eight Annual
> Meeting, Committee Meeting, Propaganda, The Cincinnati Unit Plan by
> Mrs. Wilbur C. Phillips, Page 268, Franklin Printing Company,
> Baltimore.
>
> Democracy is something like the weather. As Mark Twain once said,
> "Everybody is always talking about the weather but no one ever does
> anything about it!"
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=FvUMAQAAIAAJ&q=weather#v=snippet&q=weather&f=false
>
> Garson O'Toole


Thanks. Here's a 1912 attribution (confirmed in paper):

History of Ohio: the rise and progress of an American state, Volume 5
By Emilius Oviatt Randall, Daniel Joseph Ryan p. 1912

... and the little that is accomplished compared with that which is talked
about, suggest Mark Twain's discovery that "people are always talking
about the
weather, but nobody does anything."

http://books.google.com/books?id=vA8WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA172&dq=the-weather+does-anything+talk+OR+talks+OR+talking+OR+talked&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1888&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1912&as_brr=0&cd=3#v=onepage&q=the-weather%20does-anything%20talk%20OR%20talks%20OR%20talking%20OR%20talked&f=false

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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