Aeschylus, G.B. Shaw at it again

[victor steinbok]

Ching was Welsh from PEI, so if you're looking for folk expressions,
those are the places to look. But there is no guarantee Ching did not
get it somewhere else. Note that in Barry's notes, Calhoon cites the
expression coming from "nationally known industrial relations
authority", but three years later attributes it directly to Ching.
Winchell's citation is intervening (1948), but it attributes it to
anonymous "politician".

Dinesh D'Souza--who never shied away from ridiculous claims,
self-attributed the expression:

> "While I was at the Dartmouth Review, we used to tell the deans that taking on our campus paper was like wrestling with a pig. Not only did it get everyone dirty, but the pig liked it!"

John McCain used the expression in a Republican debate in response to
Mitt Romney--there were immediate murmurs that McCain called Romney a
pig. This was later drowned out by the "lipstick on a pig" remark that
stuck to Palin.

We got one sighting of Betrand Russell attribution. (No point--it's a dead end)

Every Shaw attribution I checked failed to cite an actual source--a
fairly clear indication that the attribution is spurious.

Third hand account--"national business and sports icon Herb Cappozi"
citing his father: http://goo.gl/CU732

Both Calhoon's attributions to Ching, the 1950 Time are all in GB.
Also in GB but with no visible text is Fadiman's 1955 collection that
also appears to attribute the statement to Ching. Winchell's comment
is in GNA, but requires some searching (not sure if Barry has the
link).

I am still playing with three other things that I haven't finished, so
I'll let others play with this one. For my money, I'm satisfied with
stopping at Ching.

VS-)


On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:40 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
...
>
> But Winchell cannot be "the source" as he cites another anonymous
> source in 1948--and Ching shows up earlier.

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