Quote: wheel that squeaks the loudest ... gets the grease (Cal Stewart as Josh Weathersby 1903)

[Jonathan Lighter]

A guest on CNN a day or so ago remarked in a similar vein, "As my
grandmother used to say, 'The closed mouth doesn't get fed.'"

JL




On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Quote: wheel that squeaks the loudest ... gets the grease
> (Cal
>              Stewart as Josh Weathersby 1903)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The squeaky wheel gets grease, squeaking wheel gets the grease
>
> This saying was discussed on the ADS list in 2004, 2005 and 2007. I
> think Sam Clements found the earliest cite dated 1910 in the Wall
> Street Journal. That's the cite given in the Yale Book of Quotations
>
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;J77f9A;200505040804310400A
>
> YBQ also notes that Josh Billings is often credited with crafting a
> verse titled "The Kicker" that contains the saying, but no one has
> actually found this quatrain in the corpus of Billings.
>
> Here is a 1903 cite with a version of poem credited to another
> personage named Josh, Josh Weathersby, the alter ego of the writer Cal
> Stewart.
>
> Cite: 1903, Uncle Josh Weathersby's "Punkin Centre" stories by Cal
> Stewart, Page 6, Regan Printing House, Chicago. (Google Books full
> view; also HathiTrust)
>
> "I don't believe in kickin',
>   It aint apt to bring one peace;
> But the wheel what squeaks the loudest
>   is the one what gets the grease."
>          —Josh Weathersby.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=nTzYAAAAMAAJ&q=squeaks#v=snippet&
> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.39000005804922
>
>
> In 1880 the following interesting couplet was used in a poem.
>
> Cite: 1880, The Telephone of Labor by George Marshall Sloan, Page
> Title and 265, Publisher Unknown, Chicago. (Google Books full view)
>
> This wagon's creaking ne'er will cease
> While its fifth wheel gets all the grease.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=IFg1AAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+grease%22#v=snippet&
>
>
> Sam Clements found a thematically relevant cite in 1853:
> 17 Jan. 1853 Gettysburg (PA)  _Republican Compiler_  1/5
> Maxims of Dr. Franklin
> The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;0wCSyg;200404021946500500A
>
> Stephen Goranson found a thematically relevant cite in a speech dated 1796:
> There was no possibility of doubt but that some of this oil of
> influence had been sent to grease that squeaking wheel in the city,
> called the mercantile interest!
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;%2FcRr4w;200701090621480500B
>
> Garson
>
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