"Time Is What Keeps Everything from Happening at Once"

[Sam Clements]

...and, of course, you want to know about the 1919 edition, which many sites
say had a slightly different text.  So, my offering is of no help.

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sam Clements" <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: "Time Is What Keeps Everything from Happening at Once"


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

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