Dorothy Parker and Vassar girls?

[Joel S. Berson]

Since I attended Vassar for several years,* I was curious.  Did
Parker actually say "Vassar girls"?  Wikipedia says Woolcott's
biographical essay on Parker is the only source, and reports it as
"If all the girls attending it ...", a Yale prom.

Joel

* For the curious, I was 3, 4, and 6, and during those years I
attended Arnold Gesell's summer laboratory in child develoopment (or
so the ancestral legend handed down to me says).  Of course, the
Gesells do connect Yale and Vassar.

JSB

At 3/6/2009 09:21 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 2:48 PM -0500 3/3/09, Bill Palmer wrote:
>>I'm thinking that linguists are like economists, who, in the well known
>>phrase, could be laid end to end and never reach a conclucion.
>>
>>Bill
>
>Not quite as vivid as Dorothy Parker's well-known variation,
>involving "Vassar girls".
>
>LH
>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
>>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 2:24 PM
>>Subject: Re: Snow
>>
>>>---------------------- Information from the mail
>>>header -----------------------
>>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
>>>Subject:      Re: Snow
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>        MWDEU's examples are "Ten dollars is all I have left," "Two
>>>miles is as far as they can walk," and "Two thirds of the area is under
>>>water."  In such cases, a singular verb seems far preferable, although
>>>you can contrive examples such as "I came to town with forty silver
>>>dollars, and now ten dollars are all I have left."
>>>
>>>        On reflection, I believe that the analysis given by Arnold
>>>Zwicky (and, posting earlier, Larry Horn) is superior to the one I had
>>>given (not that that should be surprising).  I had suggested that a
>>>singular verb could be used if the subject were considered to be a
>>>single expectation.  That doesn't hold up very well with sentences such
>>>as *"Thirteen crates of oranges is expected," although it again is
>>>probably possible to contrive an example allowing a singular verb.
>>>
>>>
>>>John Baker
>>>
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>>>Of Arnold Zwicky
>>>Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:04 AM
>>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>Subject: Re: Snow
>>>
>>>(i've reorganized the postings in this thread to put them into temporal
>>>sequence.)
>>>
>>>>On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Bill Palmer
>>>><w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Bianca Solorzano of CBS News reported this evening that "13 inches of
>>>
>>>>>snow are expected in New York."
>>>>>
>>>>>The expectations are for what: inches or snow?
>>>>>
>>>>>"Is" or "are"?
>>>
>>>
>>>>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>>>>Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
>>>>Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 10:26 PM
>>>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>>Subject: Re: Snow
>>>>
>>>>The object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a sentence. So
>>>>"inches," not "snow," is (not "are") the subject, and "are" (not "is")
>>>
>>>>is correct.
>>>
>>>
>>>On Mar 1, 2009, at 8:06 PM, John Baker wrote:
>>>
>>>>        I would think that the subject could be either "inches" (in
>>>>which case "are" would be correct) or "13 inches of snow,"
>>>>considered as
>>>>a single expectation (in which case "is" would be correct).  MWDEU, at
>>>
>>>>56, seems to prefer the singular verb, though I am comfortable with
>>>>either.
>>>
>>>MWDEU's examples are not as complex as "13 inches of snow".  what makes
>>>this NP complex is that there are two possible analyses for it
>>>(corresponding to the two interpretations John Baker sees): one in which
>>>"13 inches" is the head and "of snow" is a complement to it, and one in
>>>which "snow" is the head and "13 inches" is a quantity determiner
>>>(requiring that the head be marked by the preposition "of").  in the
>>>first, the NP is plural, because its head is plural; in the second, the
>>>NP is singular, because its head (the mass noun
>>>"snow") is singular.
>>>
>>>like John Baker, i'm comfortable with either, though some circumstances
>>>would favor one over the other.
>>>
>>>arnold
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>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

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