"we are two peoples separated by a common language" antedated & attributed

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Feb 25 21:06:02 UTC 2011


At 2:15 PM -0500 2/25/11, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>Neal Whitman wrote:
>>  Reminds me of how the Babel fish caused more and bloodier wars
>>than anything else in the history of the galaxy.
>
>Great point. There may be some line of continuity from the trenchant
>humor of George Bernard Shaw to that of Douglas Adams.
>
>Here is another joke attributed to Bernard Shaw in 1930 about the
>common language. The "different organ" for communication, in this
>case, is not small yellow telepathic Babel fish.
>

Or, in the spelling favored by that other (apocryphal) dictum of
Shaw's discussed in our thread on the topic a while back, the Babel
ghoti.

LH

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