Quote: If you want something very, very badly, let it go free (1972 edition question)

[Shapiro, Fred]

I have also ordered a copy of the 1969 privately printed edition from a bookseller in Montana.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred [fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 7:31 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Quote: If you want something very, very badly,              let it go free (1972 edition question)

Charlie Doyle has previously pointed out to me the apparent 1972 edition.  But there was apparently a privately printed 1969 edition, and I will start by trying to get hold of that one.  WorldCat lists six libraries as having the 1969 edition.  I have already put in an interlibrary loan request for it.

Fred Shapiro




________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 1:00 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Quote: If you want something very, very badly,              let it go free (1972 edition question)

1) If you really love something set it free. If it comes back it's
yours, if not it wasn't meant to be.
2) If You Love Something Set. It Free If It Comes Back, It Was And
Always Will Be Yours. If It Never Returns, It Was Never Yours To Begin
With.
3) If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're
yours; if they don't they never were.
4) If you love something, set it free- if it comes back to you, it was
meant to be

These are examples gathered yesterday from the internet of a family of
sayings. The Yale Book of Quotations and the Quote Verifier trace this
family to a book by a teacher named Jess Lair who collected sayings
from students on index cards. Below is the version that an anonymous
student wrote for Lair:

If you want something very, very badly, let it go free. If it comes
back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never yours to
begin with.

Lair states: "I don't ask that the cards be original and I don't ask
that quotations be attributed to their source."

Both YBQ and QV cite a 1974 edition of Lair's book. But WorldCat and
multiple library catalogs and databases list a 1972 edition. I checked
a supposed 1972 edition on paper and found that the quotation was
present on page 203.

The pages of the book do not explicitly give the publication date.
Here is the data listed in the edition that I checked:

Title: "I Ain't Much, Baby--But I'm All I've Got."
Author: Jess Lair, Ph.D.
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.
ISBN: 0-385-07852-8
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-180086
Copyright: 1969, 1972 by Jesse K. Lair

This supposed 1972 edition also has this note:
This edition is an expansion of the original book under this title.

Open Library has an entry with a matching LC Control Number and
the webpage states "Published 1972."
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL4771314M/I_ain%27t_much_baby--but_I%27m_all_I%27ve_got.

Strategies for determining the correct publication date would be
welcome. Thanks.

Fred discussed this quotation recently at the Freakonomics blog.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/09/a-grain-of-salt/

(Google News archive has a false match dated February 12, 1963 in
Kentucky New Era. The actual year is 1983.)

Garson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org