"If a man speaks in the forest..."

[Jonathan Lighter]

I first encountered this now familiar saying on a coffee cup in 2009.

GB takes it as far back is 1997. NewspArch shows it exploding in the
nation's papers
(via syndication) in 1998.

For the still benighted, the saying ends, "and no woman is around to hear
him, is he still wrong?"

The subtlety! The irony! The learned allusion! The gratifying sexist
stereotypes!

JL
--
"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