"A man, a plan, a canal--Panama" (1955)

[Bob Fitzke]

One I remember from reading it when I was 9 (1935), "Able was I ere I saw
Elba", supposedly uttered by Napoleon on being exiled.

Bob
You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into ---
Jonathon Swift
People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts---Sen. Dan
Moynihan
An atheist is a person with no invisible means of support---John Buchan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: "A man, a plan, a canal--Panama" (1955)


> On Dec 11, 2004, at 8:05 AM, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: "A man, a plan, a canal--Panama" (1955)
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------
>>
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>
>>> That palindrome was published in 1948 by Leigh Mercer, though it's
>>> possible that Mercer was not the first to have found it.  From _Word
>>> Ways:
>>> The Journal of Recreational Linguistics_:
>>
>> Does anyone know of any other very famous palindromes, tongue twisters,
>> limericks, etc., for which there is a known or putative coinage?
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>
> WRT limericks, is Edward Lear too obvious to need mentioning?
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---
>> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
>> Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF
>> QUOTATIONS
>>   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
>> Yale Law School                             forthcoming
>> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu
>> http://quotationdictionary.com
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---
>>
>