[Ads-l] Modern Proverb: Tie - like kissing your sister

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Sun Oct 2 19:22:51 UTC 2016


Charles C Doyle wrote:
> The feeble _Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs_, edited by Jennifer Speake
> and John Simpson (2008), p. 8, gives this saying from 1929--though I
> doubt if it was ever a proverb!

The apple-pie simile couplet was circulating in 1880, so, sadly, it
does not qualify as modern based on the 1900 cut-off date of DMP.

Year: 1882 (Preface dated: Christmas 1880)
Book Title: Through America: Or, Nine Months in the United States
Author: W. G. Marshall (Walter Gore Marshall)
Publisher: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London
Chapter 4: Wonderful Chicago
Quote Page 99

https://books.google.com/books?id=QlITAAAAYAAJ&q=%22a+squeeze%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Our Transatlantic cousins are very fond of apple-pie. It is consumed
to a large extent all over the country. Not raised apple-pie; but
flat, and with a paste that is invariably very coarse and
indigestible. You have a triangular-shaped slice put on your plate,
and (in some parts of America) if you do not want to be singular you
will eat it with a bit of cheese, Yorkshire fashion. As an American
lady once graphically put it:

"Apple-pie without cheese
Is like a kiss without a squeeze."
[End excerpt]

Garson

> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
> Sent: Sunday, October 2, 2016 2:07:35 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Modern Proverb: Tie - like kissing your sister
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Modern Proverb: Tie - like kissing your sister
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A further variant (which I remember hearing but can't source):
>
> "Apple pie without cheese / is like a kiss without a squeeze."
>
> Robin
>
>>
>>     On 02 October 2016 at 19:02 "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     On 10/1/2016 1:17 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>>     > ...
>>     >
>>     > Below is the same simile in April 1892 applied to typewritten letters
>>     > from sweethearts. This citation is a couple months before the one
>>     > listed by Barry, but the ascription, acknowledgement, and text are the
>>     > same.
>>     >
>>     > Date: April 3, 1892
>>     > Newspaper: The Times
>>     > Newspaper Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
>>     > Article: Observations
>>     > Acknowledgement: From Kate Field's Washington
>>     > Quote Page 14, Column 5
>>     >
>>     > https://www.newspapers.com/image/52505724/?terms=kissing
>>     >
>>     > [Begin excerpt]
>>     > Observations
>>     > >From Kate Field's Washington
>>     > Reading a typewritten letter from your sweetheart is like kissing your
>>     > sister.
>>     > [End excerpt]
>>     --
>>
>>     Another analogous item, from Google Books, 1871:
>>
>>     <<Champagne without ice is like kissing one's sister-in-law -- it's
>>     insipid.>>
>>
>>     ... apparently spoken by a female character in the novel "Not Wooed, But
>>     Won".
>>
>>     -- Doug Wilson
>>
>>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>>     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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