[Ads-l] Quote: Go to other people's berrin's that they may come to yours. (1895)

[Laurence Horn]

--and now they're berrin' Berra  

LH (just a smidgen shamefast)

> On Sep 28, 2015, at 6:09 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> A comical remark about funeral attendance has been attributed to the
> baseball great Yogi Berra:
> 
> Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours.
> 
> Fred and Ralph Keyes have valuable citations for the popular author
> Clarence S. Day. A few days ago Barry Popik found some excellent
> antedatings for this joke in 1907 and 1911. Now I've found some
> citations in 1895 and 1898, and I've created an entry on the topic:
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__quoteinvestigator.com_2015_09_27_funeral_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=KTIag7vH3SKITrQRPdS0k8ydZTrJyrSlpLscbRrgK3M&s=SQHRhD6ROKKaMtve-R7A2H7j_M-brkyYTY6v5G2rBlk&e= 
> 
> The earliest evidence I've located appeared in a short story published
> in a London journal called "The Leisure Hour" in 1895. The tale used
> nonstandard spelling to represent dialect, e.g., berrin', burial; ess,
> yes; cauld, cold; het, hot; motty, motto; knaw, know; and manen,
> meaning. In the following passage a character named Mrs. Polsue began
> by stating that she had not missed a burial in twenty years.
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> "Ess, o' course. I haven' missed a berrin' in this town for twenty
> year--summer or winter, cauld or het, dry or wet--and there edn' many
> can say the same. 'Do unto others as you would that they sh'd do to
> you,'--that's my motty; and I turn et this way, 'Go to other people's
> berrin's that they may come to yours.'"
> 
> "Eh--'twould be a wisht berrin' that!" chuckled Mrs. Tonkin.
> 
> "You d' knaw my manen, Ann," said Mrs. Polsue placidly.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Feedback welcome,
> Garson
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=KTIag7vH3SKITrQRPdS0k8ydZTrJyrSlpLscbRrgK3M&s=FdajqpAVnHH8TkOtzaqGA-8IxXBnMxrBQVvjFb3T4as&e= 

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