bears with furniture

[Dave Wilton]

Rudner used it in 1985 or perhaps even earlier. I remember watching her act
on HBO as an undergraduate.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
victor steinbok
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 4:17 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: bears with furniture

In case anyone ever tries to look for the source of the expression (which I
saw in two unrelated blog posts today), a good start would be here (Oct. 18,
1990):

http://goo.gl/72uS6
PUBLIC & PRIVATE; Bears With Furniture
By Anna Quindlen
NYT. Published: October 18, 1990
>
> Some of the best comedians right now are women, and the best of the woman
> comedians is named Rita Rudner. She does great bits on men, and in one of
> them she says: ''Men don't live well by themselves. They don't even live
> like people. They live like bears with furniture.''


Rudner had used the phrase for some time prior to its appearance in the NYT.
But I did not even try to track down earlier evidence.

VS-)
**

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