The Shakespearean play-goer who complained of the cliches

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Page 572 of JL's landmark work, the Historical Dictionary of American
Slang, has an entry for debbie with a 1920 citation. debbie: deb,
debutante

On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 7:24 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: The Shakespearean play-goer who complained of the cliches
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sep 24, 2014, at 4:39 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>
>> Wow, thank you for this quick find (finding?).
>>=20
>> I don't know what a debbie is (not defined by Wiktionary or the OED),
>
> Maybe a girl/young woman of the genre typically named Debbie?  I've seen =
> "a Jennifer" used as a general name of that kind, and of course there's =
> "a Sheila" in Oz.
>
> LH=20
>
>> but this is a better version of this cliched anecdote.
>>=20
>> Benjamin Barrett
>> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>>=20
>> Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/home
>>=20
>> On Sep 24, 2014, at 1:07 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole =
> <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>=20
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header =
> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: The Shakespearean play-goer who complained of the =
> cliches
>>> =
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> -----
>>>=20
>>> Thanks for introducing an interesting topic, Benjamin. Here is an
>>> instance of the same core joke in 1936, I think. Perhaps the jest can
>>> be antedated back to the 1600s.
>>>=20
>>> [ref] 1936 October 17, Ballston Spa Daily Journal, My New York by
>>> James Aswell, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Ballston Spa, New York. (Old
>>> Fulton)[/ref]
>>>=20
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> Leslie Howard has hung out his Shakespearean shingle in one theater
>>> and the English marvel, John Gielgud, is holding forth in another. . =
> .
>>> . A pert debbie, attending the Gielgud interpretation the other =
> night,
>>> quipped in the lobby: "But how can anyone listen to all those old =
> saws
>>> and ancient wisecracks they've been hearing all their lives?" . . .
>>> Well, a lot of people go to Shakespeare to recognize the quotations.
>>> [End excerpt]
>>>=20
>>> The last quip in the passage above, "people go to Shakespeare to
>>> recognize the quotations", is nowadays assigned to Orson Welles or
>>> Oscar Wilde. For example, Richard Lederer implausibly attributes the
>>> remark to Oscar Wilde.
>>>=20
>>> Garson
>>>=20
>>> On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 9:12 PM, Benjamin Barrett =
> <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header =
> -----------------------
>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>>>> Subject:      The Shakespearean play-goer who complained of the =
> cliches
>>>> =
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> -----
>>>>=20
>>>> Evidently in _The Miracle of Language_ (see "A Man of Fire-New =
> Words", =3D
>>>> http://www2.d125.org/~rtompson/lederer.pdf), 1991, Richard Lederer =
> says:
>>>>=20
>>>> -----
>>>> A student who attended a performance of Hamlet came away complaining =
> =3D
>>>> that the play "was nothing more than a bunch of cliches." The reason =
> for =3D
>>>> this common reaction...
>>>> -----
>>>>=20
>>>> I recall first seeing this about 1992 or 1993, but my recollection =
> is =3D
>>>> that it was an elderly woman who said this.
>>>>=20
>>>> This might be worth researching for those who have an interest in =
> such =3D
>>>> developments.
>>=20
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