"If you can't stand the heat,get out of the kitchen" (1942)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Even better!

Fred Shapiro


________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Benjamin Zimmer [bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 10:35 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "If you can't stand the heat,get out of the kitchen" (1942)

On 8/19/07, Barry Popik <bapopik at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Yale Book of Quotations (Pg. 787, under "Harry Vaughan") has April 28,
> 1952 as the earliest documented usage of this saying.
> ...
>  12 July 1942, Charleston (WV) Gazette, pg. 7, col. 6:
> Favorite rejoinder of Sen. Harry S. Truman, when a member of his war
> contracts investigating committee objects to his strenuous pace. "If you
> don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen."

Don't have YBQ handy, but Ralph Keyes' _The Quote Verifier_ notes that
Truman biographer Robert Ferrell gives the credit to Eugene I. "Buck"
Purcell in 1931:

----
http://books.google.com/books?id=MiQOGvKRUDAC
_Harry S. Truman: A Life_ by Robert H. Ferrell (p. 109)
During his two four-year terms as presiding judge Truman revealed a
remarkable grasp of the county's politics. One of his court
colleagues, Eugene I. Purcell, said in 1931 that "if a man can't stand
the heat he ought to stay out of the kitchen."
----

Ferrell doesn't give a reference for this, but Lee Daniel Quinn posted
this to WORDS-L in 1998 (can't vouch for the accuracy -- note the
slightly different wording):

----
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/WORDS/1998-04/0891727383
The INDEPENDENCE EXAMINER of January 1, 1931 reported the swearing in
of the new Jackson county court when Harry Truman took the oath of
office of presiding judge. In the same ceremony, E. I. "Buck" Purcell
was sworn in as eastern judge. In Purcell's response he said that in
his new job he expected to have the heat applied to him, "But if a man
can't stand the heat, he had better stay out of the kitchen."
----

Neil M. Johnson, archivist at the Truman Presidential Library, also
gives credit to Purcell:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/bennettf.htm


--Ben Zimmer

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