One man's meate is another man's poyson 1618

Sat May 21 05:29:55 UTC 2005

On Sat, 21 May 2005 00:25:51 -0400, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>At 2:21 PM -0700 5/20/05, James Smith wrote:
>>Sorry that I can't recall the story, put the punch
>>line is "One man's Meade is another man's Persian."
>>Sound familiar to any of you?
>>
>"One man's Mede is another man's Persian"
>225 google hits, with various attributions to, inter al., S.J.
>Perelman (possible), George S. Kaufman (unlikely--he usually
>malapropped rather than bon mot'd, didn't he?)

Kaufman gets the credit as early as 1950 on N-Archive, but a 1938 New York
Times article attributes it to "college jokesmiths".  And a 1956 Chicago
Tribune piece credits Franklin P. Adams.

--Ben Zimmer