Quote: [Remark on death of Calvin Coolidge] How can they tell? (antedating Dorothy Parker 1936)

[Jonathan Lighter]

1892 William S. Walsh _Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities_ (Phila.:
Lippincott) 1010: It was a popular saying about the taciturn Moltke, applied
in no uncomplimentary spirit, that he could be "silent in seven languages."
These words were first used by Schleiermacher with reference to the very
eminent and very modest philologist Emanuel Bekker (see letter of
Zelter to Goethe,
March 15, 1830).

JL
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 10:13 AM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Quote: [Remark on death of Calvin Coolidge] How can they
>              tell? (antedating Dorothy Parker 1936)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As an adaptation of this thought, there was the characterization of Moe
> Berg, the educated baseball player of the 1930s, that he spoke [x number] of
> languages, but couldn't hit in any of them.
>
> He's been the subject of a biography: The Catcher Was A Spy.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: Saturday, July 17, 2010 7:26 pm
> Subject: Re: Quote: [Remark on death of Calvin Coolidge] How can they tell?
> (antedating Dorothy Parker 1936)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> > While checking out some more facts on the subject, I came across
> > another comment, supposedly about Coolidge. The bio claimed that,
> > according to "a critic", Coolidge "could be silent in five languages".
> > The trouble is, an identical quip has been attributed variously for a
> > long time. Both the attribution and the target of the quip varied
> > widely and some appeared 40 years before Coolidge's presidency.
> > Attributions include Disraeli and Will Durant, while targets include
> > Von Moltke (1892--attributed to Disraeli and others), Bekker (1902)
> > and Baron Sidney Sonnino (1920), as well the Queen's Foreign Messenger
> > Service a.k.a. the King's/Queen's Messenger Corps (1898, attributed to
> > an anonymous Secretary of State). Disraeli's alleged remark about Von
> > Moltke appears to be the earliest of this bunch, although, by no means
> > guaranteed not to be apocryphal.
> >
> > This was just a top-level quick search without getting into any
> > detail. I have not checked quotation collections or much else, so
> > there is plenty of room to dig.
> >
> > VS-)
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 6:30 PM, Garson O'Toole
> > <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > [Remark on death of Calvin Coolidge] How can they tell?
> > >
> > > This acerbic comment has been attributed to Wilson Mizner and Dorothy
> > > Parker. The Yale Book of Quotations has an attribution to Mizner in
> > > July 1938 and Parker in 1944. I found no matches in the ADS archive
> > or
> > > Barry Popik's website.
> > >
> > > Calvin Coolidge died on January 5, 1933 and Wilson Mizner died April
> > > 3, 1933 according to Wikipedia. So it is still possible to improve the
> > > cite below, and the creator of the quip is still uncertain.
> > >
> > > Here is a 1936 cite attributing the remark to Parker in the volume
> > > "Enjoyment of Laughter" followed by a 1937 newspaper cite that reviews
> > > the book "Enjoyment of Laughter" and also contains the quote:
> > >
> > > Cite: 1936, Enjoyment of Laughter by Max Eastman, Page 155, Simon and
> > > Schuster, New York. (Google Books snippet view; Checked on paper in
> > > First reprinting 1970, Johnson Reprint Corporation)
> > >
> > > Or Dorothy Parker's remark when told that Calvin Coolidge was dead:
> > > How can they tell?
> > >
> > > http://books.google.com/books?id=ZIVZAAAAMAAJ&q=Calvin#search_anchor
> > >
> > >
> > > Cite: 1937 May 13, The Glasgow Herald, "American Humour: Review of
> > > Enjoyment of Laughter by Max Eastman", Page 2, Colum 4, Glasgow,
> > > Scotland. (Google News archive)
> > >
> > > But here one gives the prize to Dorothy Parker, that vitriolic lady
> > > who "can't read Wodehouse." When told that President Coolidge was dead
> > > all she said was, "How can they tell?"
> > >
> > > Garson
> >
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