tragedy plus time

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Mar 15 19:07:24 UTC 2011


At 1:55 PM -0400 3/15/11, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>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

A good many of the (post-Twain) attributions have "tragedy plus time"
as the definition of comedy rather than humor; close, but not quite
the same cigar.

LH

>
>
>________________________________________
>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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