"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Garson O'Toole]

John Baker wrote
>        That's excellent context, Garson.  It's this kind of background
> that gives the study of origins real meaning.

Many thanks for the positive response John. Of course, I did not
discuss all the streams of influence since I was concentrating on
gender roles. For additional background here are two already known
citations.

Gary Martin has a valuable discussion of phrase and presents a cite
with the phrase "a cow needs a bicycle" in 1898. From the phrases.org
website:

Dunn's modesty is appropriate, as 'A needs a B like a C needs a D' was
a well-established format in the USA many years before 1970. For
example, this usage in the Connecticut newspaper The Hartford Courant,
December, 1898:

The place [Aragon, Spain] didn't need an American consul any more than
a cow needs a bicycle; for it had no trade with America, and no
American tourist ever dreamed of stopping there.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/414150.html

So the use of a bicycle in this type of pairing has a long history.

For those who did not see Fred Shapiro's important cite that is
mentioned on the Freakonomics blog: The Yale Book of Quotations traces
an earlier saying, “A man without faith is like a fish without a
bicycle,” to Charles S. Harris in a college newspaper, the Swarthmore
Phoenix, Apr. 7, 1958.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/quotes-uncovered-if-wolves-and-sheep-could-vote/

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