Modern Proverb: Life is just one damn thing after another (UNCLASSIFIED)

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Fri Mar 19 23:04:56 UTC 2010


Bill Mullins wrote:
> 3/5/1909 Wilkes-Barre Times p 6 col 6
>
> "Life:  (A new definition) One damn thing after another"

Thanks for sharing that great citation. Could you indicate the
database that contains the Wilkes-Barre Times and perhaps give some
additional context? Was the quote grouped with other one-liner-style
jokes? Any indication of an author or creator?

Garson

Garson O'Toole wrote
>>
>> Life is just one damned thing after another.
>>
>> This quote appears in the online Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (also
>> Modern and Concise). A citation is given to the writer Elbert Hubbard
>> in the periodical Philistine dated December 1909. The copy of the
>> December issue of Philistine in Google Books contains the phrase with
>> a minor difference: Life is just one damn thing after another. I was
>> unable to find the phrase with "damned" in the December issue.
>>
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=IhrZAAAAMAAJ&q=damn#v=snippet&
>>
>> The Yale Book of Quotations contains a citation for the phrase "Life
>> is just one darn thing after another" dated 1909 July 22 in the
>> Washington Post along with the comment that the cite "indicates that
>> the expression predated Hubbard."

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