Modern Proverb: The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed (attrib William Gibson 1995 Sept 1)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Here's still earlier:

San Francisco Examiner  April 19, 1992 C1
As William Gibson put it: "The future has arrived - it's just not evenly distributed yet."

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2010 7:48 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Modern Proverb: The future is already here,              it's just unevenly distributed (attrib William Gibson 1995 Sept 1)

Many thanks for finding and posting that fascinating cite, Fred. I
have never heard the name Doug Kalish associated with the quotation.
Spurred by your fine result I located an attribution to Gibson in
1994:

1994 April 3, The Seattle Times, Job Opportunities Along the
Information Superhighway by Steven Spenser, Seattle, Washington.

Ultimately, cyberpunk science-fiction author William Gibson may have
the best assessment of what's going on: "The future has arrived - it's
just not evenly distributed yet."


Thanks to Jon for the reference to MST3K. I did find a 1998 episode
with a short feature set at a World's Fair that includes a monorail
ride and "futuristic" telephone features. But it is not the episode
you mention because there are no moving sidewalks:

Filmed in 1962 during the Seattle World's Fair. A promotional film for
the Bell System circuit-switched telephone network, a trademark of
AT&T. Directed by Robert W. Larsen.

http://mst3k.wikia.com/wiki/The_Space_Children
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1881547959631767401#

Garson

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Modern Proverb: The future is already here, it's just
>              unevenly distributed (attrib William Gibson 1995 Sept 1)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed" appears earlier in the Courier-Mail, June 6, 1995, where it is attributed to Doug Kalish.
>
> Fred Shapiro
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2010 4:51 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Modern Proverb: The future is already here,              it's just unevenly distributed (attrib William Gibson 1995 Sept 1)
>
> Who said "the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed"?
>
> These are the words of a questioner at the Quotes Uncovered:
> Freakonomics website in September 2009.
> ...

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