"They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat." & "Facts are stubborn things"

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

TIKKA MASALA

OED Appeals wants a pre-1978 "tikka masala." Why do I do these  things?

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BEN ZIMMER

I hate that guy! He's too good! He did "leaving New York" right away. I
should start packing.

I did some basketball slang before. We're all waiting for the Los Angeles
Times to get to "slam dunk" and "point guard" by about 1970. I had posted that
1971 "slam dunk."

"Backboard" should be two words, "back board." It was invented early on,
about the first year of the sport..

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"FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS"

Facts may be stubborn things, as John Adams said, but the need for bogeymen
is more stubborn still--especially in today's fractured politics, when
partisans  no longer care to distinguish between a bogeyman and a straw man.

---NEW YORK SUN, 15 December 2004, pg. 8, col. 5.


So I was at this "punch" NY Culinary Historians thing last night at the
National Arts Club, and there was this beautiful woman there, like a young
Jennifer Connolly-Sarah Silverman Jewish beautiful. She said that she was a
reporter for the New York Sun. She asked me about food, and how to spell my  name. I
had to smile. Of course I'm too old for anyone to like me, having spent  the
best years of my life in service of Chicago. But I digress. Anyway, the
story's not in today's paper.

Tobias Smollett probably said this "facts" thing before John Adams. There
are many web hits for both names. I don't know which one Fred's going  with.

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"THEY TRIED TO KILL US. THEY FAILED. LET'S EAT."

With a wry grin, he (George Lang of Cafe des Artistes--ed.) repeats the old
Jewish gallows joke: "They tried to kill us. We survived. So now, let's eat
well!"

--NEW YORK SUN, 14 December 2004, pg. 16, col. 4.


Fred Shapiro has to have this. It's one of the best food and Jewish
quotations of all time!

The second line can be "They failed" or "We survived" or "We won."

No hits on Newspaperarchive or Proquest??


THEY TRIED TO KILL US + EAT--3,940 Google hits, 324 Google Groups  hits

(GOOGLE)
_d-42.com:  Josh Cohen online: Let's eat._
(http://www.d-42.com/archives/000811.html)
... I remember  once reading that all Jewish holidays could be boiled down
into nine
simple  words: "They tried to kill us. They failed.  Let's eat.". ...
_www.d-42.com/archives/000811.html_
(http://www.d-42.com/archives/000811.html)