Rule of Three

[Alice Faber]

Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>a commentator on NPR's Sunday Morning Edition today (2/8/04) claimed
>that the three most important (electoral) issues in michigan are:
>"Jobs, jobs, jobs."
>
>this is (i think) a play on the real estate cliche that the three most
>important considerations in buying a house are: "Location, location,
>location".  location-location-location itself has been extended to a
>great many domains besides real estate; to appreciate this, google on
>"location location location" and sample some of the roughly 218,000
>sites listed.
>
>in any case, there's a formula here:
>   The three most important Xs in Y are: Z, Z, Z.
>(conveying something like 'the only really important X in Y is Z').
>

Would you include in the same trope "practice, practice, practice"
(as in, "how do you get to Carnegie Hall?")?

Googling on the phrase turns up many sites that refer to this as "an
old joke", but, alas, none give any clues as to how old.

(It's frightening to note that a non-trivial number of hits are
returned googling for "location, location, location" and "practice,
practice, practice".
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963