Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others (UNCLASSIFIED)

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Thu Mar 3 21:30:17 UTC 2011


Also note that this particular phrasing was repeatedly borrowed in
professional publications--I found three other hits between 1963 and
1966, but in journals that Ann Landers would have been unlikely to have
read (e.g., Journal of Occupational Therapy).

     VS-)

On 3/3/2011 4:26 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> Ann Landers likely got this version from the Rotarian or directly from
> Time:
>
> http://goo.gl/M6MTL
> The Rotarian. June 1963
> In Pursuit of Excellence. By Charles F. Moore, Jr. p. 56
>
> http://goo.gl/mjOGG
> Time. [GB claims 1961, but it actually seems to be 1961-62 volume--and
> another page mentions "Red Smith, 55", which would put the snippet to
> early 1961, as Smith was born in September 1905.]
>
> But "sweating blood" for a column is an old metaphor:
>
> http://goo.gl/n7dOS
> The Reader: an illustrated monthly magazine, Volume 5:2. January 1905.
> THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. By Will Levington Comfort. p. 212/2
>> "'E's a free lawnce, I'm tauld," Peele said languidly, "un-limited
>> spyce 'n' all that. Tell me nauw, 'ow much does 'e myke?"
>> "Altogether too much--an amount, wholly unnewspaperlike. Fifty or
>> sixty dollars a day, likely. And he don't write easily--labors,
>> groans, sweats blood before he gets it comings--"
>> A fit of coughing in Graver's room silenced the typewriter. Afterward
>> there was the squeak of a drawn cork, the suggestion of a gurgle,
>> followed by a harsh expulsion of breath, as from one nauseated.
>> "And that's all new too," Keeler resumed, half-angrily. "Stimulant!
>> It's so easy, so devilish easy, to get used to working that way. I
>> believe I'll go and rope him down, strangle him and make him see the
>> right way!"
>
> Note, however, that the comment suggests that the process involves
> sweating blood because it's /not/ easy.
>
>     VS-)
>
> On 3/3/2011 3:28 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>> Ann Landers in _The [Bend, OR] Bulletin_ 10/3/1966 p  8 col 4
>>
>> "As Red Smith put it, "Writing a daily column is easy.  All you have to
>> do is sit at a typewriter until small drops of blood form on your
>> forehead." "

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