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

[Joel S. Berson]

We've been through this before.  The physicist first has to stop and
put on his sneakers.

Joel

At 11/20/2011 06:43 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>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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