Village's missing idiot

[Jonathan Lighter]

I recall seeing the same shirts in a store window in NYC in 1986.  I hesitated to post till Kevin's message confirmed the "idiot" shirt's existence by the mid '80s.

  My recollection is that there was an outbreak of shirts with that type of message at that time.  If someone had presciently saved a catalogue, we'd undoubtedly have early xx. of several latterly popular phrases.

  JL

Kevin Birge <kevin at FRONTSTRETCH.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Kevin Birge
Subject: Re: Village's missing idiot
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I remember having a T-shirt I purchased while I was in Language school in
1980 that said "Somewhere, a village is missing its idiot." I also had one
that said "Nuke the Whales" There really is no humor like T-shirt humor.

Kevin

On 2/9/07, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Scot LaFaive
> Subject: Re: Village's missing idiot
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks for the info, I was curious if it predated Bush. Seems it did, but
> not by much. I didn't find any earlier hits on ProQuest and LexisNexis.
>
> Scot
>
>
> >From: Charles Doyle
> >Reply-To: American Dialect Society
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: Village's missing idiot
> >Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 13:18:10 -0500
> >
> >---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >-----------------------
> >Sender: American Dialect Society
> >Poster: Charles Doyle
> >Subject: Village's missing idiot
>
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >While many of us relate the saying "Somewhere in Texas a village is
> missing
> >its idiot" specifically with the current president, and it may have been
> an
> >Ivinsism from Shrub's gubernatorial days, the core of the expression has
> >entered popular currency as an insult of wider application.
> >
> >As early as 31 July 1997, a quotation appeared in the _Pittsburg Post
> >Gazette_: "'Somewhere in the world, there are two villages missing their
> >idiots,' one police officer theorized."
> >
> >A letter-to-the-editor of the _Arkansas Democrat-Gazette_ for 1 December
> >2000 declared, "I can't but wonder that (sic) somewhere in this great
> state
> >of Arkansas, some village is missing its idiot." The reference,
> improbably,
> >is Bill Clinton!
> >
> >A good many other instances of the proverb used in non-W'istical
> >applications can be rounded up from Lexis-Nexis and Google.
> >
> >--Charlie
> >_________________________________________________
> >
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