Homeless Hilton; Third Generation; Financial Terms

[George Thompson]

----- Original Message -----
From: Bapopik at AOL.COM
Date: Thursday, April 12, 2001 3:17 am
Subject: Homeless Hilton; Third Generation; Financial Terms

> --------------------------------------------------------
> WHAT HAVE YOU/THEY DONE FOR ME LATELY?
>
>   I've heard this in a modern song and in an old television
> commercial ("What has Sheraton done for you lately?").  I don't
> know what Fred has.
>   The NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 1 March 1964, section 3, pg. 9,
> col. 3, has "What have they done for me lately?"  It was taken
> from Bill Schneider's booklet, "There's No Business Like YOUR
> Business."
> --------------------------------------------------------

I recall this as the punchline to a joke in (probably) one of Bennett
Cerf's joke books, presumably one in print before the end of the 1950s.
 In brief, a man asks a friend for a favor; the friend refuses.  The man
is shocked, recites a long litany of huge services he had done for the
friend; the friend replies, Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?

Cerf's joke books and other such collections ought to be a good source
for catch-phrases and cliches.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.