"love it or leave it"

[Jonathan Lighter]

IN GIANT PRINT:

"AMERICA!...LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT

"If they don't like it here, why don't they leave?" [Etc., etc.]

 --_Gettysburg Times_, July 16, 1940, p. 5 (NewspaperArchive)

JL

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> You're right about the short form, Wilson.
>
> I'm only showing that the phrase existed long before VN, FWIW, IYKWIM. YBQ
> (that's four in a row) recommends a look at earlier but far less similar
> words from Dorothy Parker & Gus Kahn.
>
> Also FWIW, my recollection is that "America: Love it or Leave it" came on
> the national scene only as late as 1969.  It was the same year that
> conservatives hijacked the American flag for their exclusive bumper-sticker
> use.
>
> But I digress:
>
> 1930 Dr. L. H. Beeler, Grove City College, in _Simpsons' Leader-Times_
> (Kittanning, Pa.) (Oct. 29) 1 (NewspaperArchive): Secretary Davis says there
> are six million aliens in this country who do not want to become American
> citizens. They come here for three reasons: to spread propoganda [sic], to
> exploit America, and to encourage financial assistance. If this country is
> not good enough for them to make it their home, they should be sent back to
> stay forever. They are working destruction against our institutions and
> dismembering our ideals and destroying America. The solution to this problem
> is not difficult - love it or leave it - be loyal or disappear.
>
> Beeler was also disturbed by kids at the movies who cheered antisocial acts
> and by movies that "catered to sex, disloyalty, the broken home, or
> bootlegging."
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 2:35 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "love it or leave it"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Jonathan Lighter
>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > YBQ has "America: Love it or Leave it" under "Political Slogans," dated
>> to
>> > the Vietnam years.
>> >
>> > That's when I first heard it.
>>
>> Yes, but I've always interpreted
>>
>> _leave it_
>>
>> as
>>
>> "go back where you came from" / "go to someplace that you like better"
>> / "get TF OUT!"
>>
>> whereas
>>
>> "leave it alone"
>>
>> seems milder, much milder, as it travels the thought to your mind.
>> More like, well, if it bothers you, then forget it. Sorry I asked.
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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