[Ads-l] Adage: Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jan 12 21:45:50 UTC 2016


The saying in the subject line is listed in Nigel's "Cassell's
Humorous Quotations", Fred's "The Yale Book of Quotations", and
Charlie et al's "The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs"

I've located a citation that appeared a couple weeks before the
earliest citation listed in the references above.

[ref] 1960 April 8, Grand Prairie Daily News, The Lyons Den: Owls May
View Hitchcock Movie by Leonard Lyons, Quote Page 2, Column 5, Grand
Prairie, Texas. (Newspapers_com)[/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
Madison Avenue's definition of Death: "Nature's way of telling you to slow up".
[End excerpt]

The QI website now has an entry on the topic here:
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/08/slow/

In addition, there is a 1960 book that apparently included the saying.
I am attempting to verify this citation, and will send a request
off-list to a list member who might be able to help.

Year: 1960 Copyright
Book Title: Spacehive
Author: Jeff Sutton
Publisher: Ace Books, New York.
Quote Page 135 (GB snippet data)

Remark: This citation has not yet been verified on paper; this data is
based on a snippet match in Google Books; a match in HathiTrust; and
catalog data from WorldCat

[Begin excerpt]
"These damned missiles will be the death of me yet," he remarked facetiously.
"Death," Tolenberg intoned, "is nature's way of telling you to slow down."
[End excerpt]

Garson

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list