Modern Fable: Lions and gazelles (Dan Montano 1985 July 6)

[Garson O'Toole]

JL: Thanks for reporting on the condensed statement from a Jeopardy winner.

I heard the outrun-the-bear joke in the 1980s. At the time I thought
it was a very old joke, but I did not have any particular
justification for that feeling. When researching the Lion-Gazelle
fable I guessed that the person who created it knew the
outrun-the-bear joke.

A quick incomplete search finds an instance of outrun-the-bear that is
probably from 1983. This would predate the earliest known instance of
the Lion-Gazelle fable.

Cite: 1983, CERN.: Issue 4 (Google Books unverified; data may be
inaccurate; Probe with 1983 looks ok)
http://books.google.com/books?id=_1fyAAAAMAAJ&q=+%22the+bear%22#search_anchor

[Begin excerpt]
"Let's run" The other responded, somewhat pedantically, "You can't run
faster than a bear." To which the first physicist replied, "I don't
have to run faster than the bear, I have to run faster than you."
[End excerpt]

On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Modern Fable: Lions and gazelles (Dan Montano 1985 July 6)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Me too. But probably only within the past year or so.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 5:51 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Modern Fable: Lions and gazelles (Dan Montano 1985 July 6)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Nov 20, 2011, at 2:39 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>>> Even more proverbial than before.
>>>
>>> On NPR, the top Jeopardy winner of all time explains that, in order to
>>> win, "You don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun the
>>> other guy."
>>>
>>> JL
>>>
>> I've encountered this not as a proverb but as a punchline of a joke:  "I don't have to run faster than the bear--I just have to run faster than you."
>>
>> LH
>>
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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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