fun with phrases

[Jonathan Lighter]

"You do what you need to do to survive."

1946 _Town Meeting_ XII (1946) [GB snippet: looks real]:  I think that
people do what they feel they need to do in order to survive. I am for the
most rigid and strenuous punishment of everybody who is guilty of a crime
under nazism.

Then nothing till

1983 Jean Swallow _Out from Under_ (S.F.: Spinsters Ink) 125 [GB: phrase not
directly visible, looks real]: We all do what we think we need to do to
survive.

Not a whole lot of exx. since then, but I've heard it a number of times in
the past 20-odd  years.  I'd call it a cliche' now, but not before the mid
'80s.

(My search was for "do what * need to * to survive.")

JL

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 4:43 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: fun with phrases
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "You don't have to be crazy to *  - but it helps!"
>
> 1925 _N.Y. Times_ (Nov. 2) 20 [rev. of movie "Classified"]: One of the
> captions, written by Ralph Spence, reads: You don't have to be crazy to
> dance the Charleston, but it helps."
>
> 1925 -26 _American Bee Journal_ [GB: snippet, typeface looks legit]:They
> say *you don't have to be crazy to do the Charleston =97 but it helps.
>
> 1927 _N.Y. Eve. Post_ (June 18) [http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
> ]:
> You don't have to be crazy to dance the Charleston but it helps.
>
> 1927 Morrie Ryskind, C. F. Stevens, J. Englander _The Home Movie Scenario
> Book_  (N.Y.: R. Manson) [GB, phrase not visible but looks real]:  You
> don'=
> t
> have to be crazy to play golf, but it certainly helps.
>
>
> After 1940, widely applied to things other than golfing and dancing the
> Charleston, esp. "work here."
>
> Scenarist Ralph Spence's title card appears to have been the effective
> source.  Over to you, Fred!
>
> JL
>
> *
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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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."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org