Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco (Duluth in 1900) and a mystery volume with restricted access in Google Books

[Dave Wilton]

But if Google Books metadata is to be trusted (which is a big assumption),
this volume contains an article titled "Educating Horses." by Harry Hieover.
Hieover wrote a book on horsemanship, "Stable Talk and Table Talk" v. 2, in
1846 that contains an article titled "Educating Horses." So a date of around
1846 seems likely.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Garson O'Toole
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 8:07 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco (Duluth in
1900) and a mystery volume with restricted access in Google Books

Joel S. Berson wrote:
> Harvard seems to have vols. 2 through 49 (1816) with some
> missing.  What volume and page are we looking for?

Many thanks for your response Joel, and your willingness to help.
Unfortunately, the Google Books database is not supplying a year or a
volume number. The page is 222. I have not been able to extract a year
using a variety of search probes. Here are two links. Maybe someone
else  can extract a date or volume number:

http://books.google.com/books?id=qRQGAAAAQAAJ&
http://books.google.com/books?id=qRQGAAAAQAAJ&q=Beresford#search_anchor

> At 7/11/2011 06:52 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Garson, Eighteenth Century Collections Online contains one volume of this
>>magazine only (1793).
>>
>>I could not find the passage in question.
>>
>>On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 6:35 PM, Garson O'Toole
>><adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco
(Duluth
>> > in
>> >              1900) and a mystery volume with restricted access in
Google
>> > Books
>> >
>> >
>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>> >
>> > The periodical "The Sporting Magazine; or Monthly Calendar of the
>> > Transactions of the Turf" was the first English sporting periodical,
>> > and it was published between 1792 and 1870 according to Wikipedia an
>> > occasionally reliable website. So why is the following digital volume
>> > locked up in Google Books?
>> >
>> > http://books.google.com/books?id=qRQGAAAAQAAJ&
>> >
>> > The images were created from a copy at Oxford University. GB does not
>> > give a date or any other bibliographic data about this mystery volume.
>> > I cannot find the volume at HathiTrust. I do not know how to search
>> > for it at the Internet Archive because I have been unable to extract a
>> > date. The volume interests me because it contains the following
>> > excerpt:
>> >
>> > All admit this to have been the most open winter in their remembrance.
>> > Beresford, when asked if he ever knew such a Winter, replied with his
>> > usual quickness, "Yes, last Summer."
>> >
>> > http://books.google.com/books?id=qRQGAAAAQAAJ&q=Beresford#search_anchor
>> >
>> > I sent a message to Google to request the full display of "The
>> > Sporting Magazine" volume. If some list member can extract a date from
>> > this book or has a suggestion for obtaining access please let me know.
>> >
>> > Here is some additional background for this topic. I am exploring the
>> > following well-known saying attributed to Mark Twain: The coldest
>> > winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
>> >
>> > Multiple references state that there is no compelling evidence that
>> > Twain is responsible for this saying. However, the references also
>> > note that Twain did write a letter containing the following:
>> >
>> >  ...anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly,
>> > Paris the rainy, Paris the damnable. More than a hundred years ago
>> > somebody asked Quin, "Did you ever see such a winter in all your life
>> > before?" "Yes," said he, "Last summer." I judge he spent his summer in
>> > Paris.
>> >
>> > - letter to Lucius Fairchild, 28 April 1880, reprinted in Mark Twain,
>> > The Letter Writer
>> >
>> > http://www.twainquotes.com/Paris.html
>> >
>> > The quotation in "The Sporting Magazine" may help to illuminate the
>> > history of the quip used by Twain. If someone wishes to offer an
>> > interpretation for the term "open winter" I would like to hear it. My
>> > guess is that the phrase refers to the existence of a large number of
>> > competitive race horses.
>> >
>> > I am also tracing jokes matching the template of the San Francisco
>> > saying. Here are the two earliest I have found so far in 1900 and
>> > 1901:
>> >
>> > Cite: 1900 June 17, Duluth News-Tribune, [No article title], Page 12,
>> > Column 3, Duluth, Minnesota. (GenealogyBank)
>> >
>> > One of these days somebody will tell that mouldy chestnut about the
>> > finest winter he ever saw being the summer he spent in Duluth, and one
>> > or these husky commercial travelers, who have been here and know all
>> > about our climate, will smite him with an uppercut and break his
>> > slanderous jaw. The truth will come out in time.
>> >
>> > Cite: 1901 June 17, Morning Herald, Interesting Experiences Of Local
>> > Man Who Deals in Weather - Exciting Incidents That Do Not Appear In
>> > His Records, GBK Page 6, Column 2, Lexington, Kentucky.
>> > (GenealogyBank)
>> >
>> > Another assignment was to Duluth, Minn., where he learned to
>> > appreciate rapid changes in temperature. He says the coldest winter he
>> > ever experienced was the summer he spent in Duluth.
>> >
>> > Over a span of more than one hundred years many locations were
>> > substituted into this joke including: Milwaukee, Two Harbors, Grand
>> > Marais, Puget Sound, Buffalo, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.
>> >
>> > Thanks for any help
>> > Garson
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > 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."
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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