"Time Is What Keeps Everything from Happening at Once"

[Sam Clements]

A search on Amazon for "The Girl in the Golden Atom" shows the phrase on p.
46.(of this particular edition) thusly:

"...How would you describe time?" The Big Business Man smiled.  "Time," he
said, "is what keeps everything from happening at once."  "Very clever,"
laughed the Chemist...."

Sam Clements


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Shapiro" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 5:59 PM
Subject: "Time Is What Keeps Everything from Happening at Once"


> In The Yale Book of Quotations I have the following quote:
>
> Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
>        Ray Cummings, "The Time Professor" (1921)
>
> A purchaser of the YBQ has written to me to say that "The line is in
> Cummings'
> most famous story, 'The Girl in the Golden Atom', which was originally
> published in All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1919."  His source is The Giant
> Anthology of Science Fiction, edited by Leo Margulies and Oscar J. Friend,
> Merlin Press, Inc., New York, 1954. The quotation is from Chapter V, "The
> World
> in the Ring", on p. 148 of his copy. Here is the quotation, with some
> context:
>
> "To get a conception of this change you must analyze definitely what time
> is.
> We measure and mark it by years, months, and so forth, down to minutes and
> seconds, all based upon the movements of our earth around its sun. But
> that is
> the measurement of time, not time itself. How would you describe time?"
>
> The Big Business Man smiled. "Time," he said, "is what keeps everything
> from
> happening at once."
>
> "Very clever," laughed the Chemist.
>
> Is anyone able to verify whether the same passage appears in the original
> magazine publication?
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org