"When the going gets tough, …"

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Sat Apr 13 02:00:56 UTC 2013


Ben Zimmer
>
> FWIW, Frank Leahy coached at Boston College in 1939-40 before moving
> on to Notre Dame. And of course Joe Kennedy was from Boston.

Yes, I agree Ben. Boston appears to be an important nexus. Here are
additional details about the cite in 1949. The OCR on the image in the
database is poor, so some of the natural search queries do not match
this cite.

[ref] 1949 October 10, Boston Herald, (Advertisement for "Arnold & Co.
Inc. Advertising" of Boston, Massachusetts), Quote Page 12, Column 1,
Boston, Massachusetts. (GenealogyBank) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]

      KNOCK IT OFF!

. . . singing the blues
never kept anyone out of
the red. Remember . . .
when the going gets tough
. . . the tough get going
So rather than do more
advertising . . . we suggest
more effective advertising.

[End excerpt]

Garson

> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 1:56 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>>
>> I see there is an instance of the motto in Boston Herald (Boston, MA)
>> on October 10, 1949. The search continues.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 1:41 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>>>
>>> The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs compiled by Charles Clay Doyle,
>>> Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro and the Yale Book of Quotations
>>> have an excellent cite in May 4, 1954 (as noted by Charlie and Ben).
>>>
>>> Here is an interesting earlier version of the motto that does not
>>> quite conform to the antimetabole pattern.
>>>
>>> [ref] 1951 July 26, The Courier (Brookfield Courier), (Freestanding
>>> unattributed statement), Quote Page 8, Column 7, Brookfield, New York.
>>> [/ref]
>>>
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> When the going gets tough the tough keep going.
>>> [End excerpt]
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "the tough get going". This proverb figures in a posting on a Zippy cartoon, here:
>>>>   http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/body-language-and-lithuanians/
>>>>
>>>> in that posting, i quote Wikipedia speculations about the source.  i can't at the
>>>> moment locate my copy of the Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, so i don't know
>>>> if it's in there.  anyone have the skinny on the proverb?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list