Bill Klem Quote

[Jonathan Lighter]

It's Klem's Uncertainty Principle.

JL

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Bill Klem Quote
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:29 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> There's a more elaborate version involving three apocryphal umpires,
> encompassing both lines:
>
> Umpire #1: "I calls 'em as they is."
> Umpire #2: "I calls 'em as I sees 'em."
> Umpire #3: "They ain't nothin' till I calls 'em."
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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