"Once a Dodger, Always a Dodger" (1934)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 17, 2005, at 7:47 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> At 8:04 AM -0400 5/17/05, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> I've just added "once a Dodger, always a Dodger" to my web page.
>> ...
>> Can anyone beat 1934?
>> ...
>>
>
> I wonder if there are earlier cites for "Once a(n) X, always a(n) X".
> When I was a young'un, I remember being taught on my professor's knee
> "Once a phoneme, always a phoneme".  That was after 1934, though.

ah, the sort of formula that we dubbed "snowclone" on the Language
Log.  the most recent discussion is of the "every schoolboy knows..."
formula, on 2/27/05:

   http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001932.html

  i'll note the "once a X, always a Y" formula on the blog, with a
pointer to ADS-L.

arnold