slow boat to china

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:46:26 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500, Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
>wrote:
>
>>Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948.
>>
>>I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which
>>says:
>>
>>"As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China."
>>
>>I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive.
>>
>>Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out
>>in very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948.
>
>Loesser claimed to have written "On a Slow Boat to China" in 1945 -- he
>even presented evidence to this effect in a court case when he was accused
>of plagiarizing a song published in 1947 (Robert E. Overman's "Wonderful
>You").
>
>http://library.law.columbia.edu/music_plagiarism/069/069.html

Found this in the book _A Most Remarkable Fella_ (1993, 2000) by Frank's
daughter Susan Loesser, via Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" feature:

     "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a
     well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a
     person who lost steadily and handsomely.  My father
     turned it into a romantic song, placing the title in
     the mainstream of catch-phrases in 1947. (p. 62)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0634009273/?v=search-inside&keywords=slow+boat


--Ben Zimmer