Most Notable Quotations of 2010 (UNCLASSIFIED)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Nov 22 16:03:40 UTC 2010


At 10:01 AM -0500 11/22/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>I would add to the list of quotations:
>
>Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?
>Christine O'Donnell
>

To be fair, it's not in the Constitution proper but in the First
Amendment.  Perhaps Ms. O'Donnell  hadn't gotten that far, or skipped
the boring First to get to the good stuff in the Second.

>On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
><Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>>  Subject:      Re: Most Notable Quotations of 2010 (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>>  Caveats: NONE
>>
>  > "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested" seems to be gaining
>  > currency -- it probably will be this year's "Don't tase me, bro!"

The more popular, and more concise, phrasing appears to be simply
"Don't touch my junk", with "About 1,380,000 results", as in:

'The battle-cry of the outraged has turned from "Don't tread on me"
to "Don't touch my junk".'

But maybe there's no single outragee who's associated with that
version, while the conditional phrasing was attributed to some
particular immortal passenger whose name I've forgotten.

LH

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