tragedy plus time

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Tue Mar 15 17:55:51 UTC 2011


This is usually attributed to Carol Burnett or Woody Allen, but both of those attributions are probably apocryphal like the Twain one.  In 2004 Barry Popik posted a citation from the early 1960s here, I believe.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 12:48 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: tragedy plus time

As Woody Allen famously put it, "Humor is tragedy plus time."

According to somebody quoted without correction on CNN, it was Mark Twain
who said it.

JL

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

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