"No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, May 07, 2003 at 09:37:28PM -0400, Fred Shapiro wrote:
> On Wed, 7 May 2003, Towse wrote:
>
> > "And, according to Robert Caro, quoted in the Random House
> > Historical Dictionary of American Slang, New York Mayor Fiorello
> > LaGuardia used the phrase (in Latin, no less) in 1934.
>
> What LaGuardia is supposed to have said translates as "no more free
> lunch."  This is very different from the economists' proverb, which says
> that there is never a free lunch, never has been, never will be.

It's also true that HDAS puts the Caro quotation (itself dated
1974) in brackets; it doesn't regard even the later example as
the phrase in question.

Oh, and what LaGuardia is quoted as saying is in Italian, not Latin.

Jesse Sheidlower