Bill Klem Quote

[Shapiro, Fred]

You're right, Jon.  I should actually read posts before I respond to them.

The quote I was thinking of was "It ain't nothing till I call it."  The quote Jon was posting about, "I calls 'em as I sees 'em," seems not to be included in Paul Dickson's Baseball's Greatest Quotations, although Dickson has a section of front matter titled "I Call 'Em As I See 'Em."

In addition to finding earlier evidence than 1948 for "It ain't nothing till I call it," perhaps Garson or Sam or Bill or Stephen or Ben or someone else can find early evidence for "I call 'em as I see 'em."  The earliest version I find in a quick ProQuest search is 1933 in the Boston Globe, where Klem is quoted denying that he called them as he saw them.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 10:45 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Bill Klem Quote

Actually it isn't, Fred.  At least not on p.433, where there is a different
quote from Klem.

Do I have an obsolete edition?

JL

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Bill Klem Quote
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Note that this famous quote is in The Yale Book of Quotations, under Bill
> Klem's name, although the earliest attribution I found (1948) is to a
> different umpire, Charlie Moran.  Perhaps Garson or Bill or Sam or Stephen
> or Ben or someone else can find it earlier than 1948.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 8:47 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: narrative
>
> I calls 'em as I sees 'em.
>
> (PS: This famous quote, from an anecdote told by baseball umpire Bill Klem,
>  is absent from YBQ despite a whopping 2,000,000 raw Gogglits. GB takes it
> back to 1929.)
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: narrative
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On 5/26/11 12:03 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> > > Date:    Wed, 25 May 2011 16:19:46 +0100
> > > From:    Michael Quinion<wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG>
> > > Subject: Re: narrative
> > >
> > > Ron Butters wrote:
> > >
> > >> >  "On the back foot" appears to be a mere slip of the tongue, a blend
> > of
> > >> >  (?) "on the back burner" and "on the wrong foot" (though that
> > >> >  interpretation does not seem to lead to the reading that JL gives
> > it).
> > > It's not an error but a British English idiom from cricket. It comes
> from
> > > a batsman's being forced to put his weight on to his back foot, to take
> > up
> > > a defensive posture, because of the strength or accuracy of the bowler.
> > As
> > > an idiom it mean that a person has been forced into a defensive
> position.
> > >
> >
> > Thanks for doing our homework for us, Michael!
> >
> > --
> > ---Amy West
> >
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> > 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."
>
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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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