Quote: In two words: im-possible (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mark Mandel]

I wonder if there is some influence here from Andújar's native (Dominican
Republic) Spanish. This is only a guess, but he may have originally been
thinking of some Spanish word that can refer either to a word or to a phrase
or expression.

I was thinking of "dicho". It normally refers to a saying or proverb, but my
daughter, whose Spanish was at one time quite fluent, speculates that the
expression "dicho y hecho", corresponding to the English idiom "word and
deed", might be at the root of this.

m a m

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> FWIW, I remember seeing this in SI quite clearly. Andujar may not
> really have said it, but SI *absolutely* published an article *saying*
> that he said it. I've been telling this story for *years* - as my wife
> will gladly testify - and SI is my source.
>
> However, I admit that I recall it somewhat differently: that he said
> *something* like,
>
> "My favorite English word[sic] is 'What can you do?'"
>
> But, regardless of the actual wording of the quote - it may be that he
> said both and I found one more memorable than the other - or its
> actual date of publication, I totally agree with Larry and his sources
> that it appeared in SI.
>


>
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 11:07 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
> <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> >> >
> >> In any case, a companion piece for one of my favorite (almost
> >> apocryphal?) baseball quotes, uttered by St. Louis Cardinals' pitcher
> >> Joaquin Andujar:
> >>
> >> "There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is,
> >> 'You never know.'"
> >>
> >>   Sports Illustrated, June 22, 1987 [according to the always reliable
> >> internet sources]
> >>
> >> LH
> >
> > Searching the SI archives at the SI Vault website does not confirm this
> > quote -- but I don't know how complete those archives are.
>
>

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