Q: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:39 PM -0400 6/1/10, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>Laurence Horn wrote:
>>  And in Nov. 2006 I mentioned recalling the existence of a poem that
>>  included both these lines, but being unable to locate said poem on
>>  the web.  This is still the case.
>
>During my search I did locate a poem in a 1971 article. The poem does
>not contain the exact line "Fruit flies like a banana", but it plays
>with the default semantics of terms, and it does contain "fruit flies"
>and "bananas". The date given for the poem is 1966:
>
># Time Flies Like an Arrow
># J. A. Barnes
># Man, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 537-552
># Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
># Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2799182
>
>Now, thin fruit flies like thunderstorms,
>And thin farm boys like farm girls narrow;
>And tax firm men like fat tax forms -
>But time flies like an arrow!
>
>When tax forms tax all firm men's souls,
>While farm girls slim their boyfriends' flanks;
>That's when the murd'rous thunder rolls -
>And thins the fruit flies ranks.
>
>Like tossed bananas in the skies,
>The thin fruit flies like common yarrow;
>Then's the time to time the time flies -
>Like the time flies like an arrow.
>                                              (Schroeder 1966)
>
>(Errors may have been introduced during retyping)
>
>Garson

That's the one, Garson!  Thanks very much.  I made the mistake of
including "Fruit flies like a banana" in my search and missed this,
but I distinctly remember (now) the lines about the tax forms.


LH

>
>Below is a message from the ADS archive dated 2006 November 12
>Subject:         Re: Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana
>From:   Laurence Horn <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To:       American Dialect Society <[log in to unmask]>
>Date:   Sun, 12 Nov 2006 13:49:18 -0500
>
>I remember it from the mid-sixties too, and indeed in the context of
>a poem of which the last (punch)line is "Time flies like an arrow".
>Does anyone else remember or figure out how to access that poem?  It
>was popular around ling. departments at the time, but since none of
>us had computers, there are no copies.
>
>LH
>

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