[Ads-l] Quote: I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Off-list Barry Popik sent to me and Ben some excellent citations for
this Yogi quotation. I've updated the QI article and included the
following acknowledgement:

[Begin excerpt]
Great thanks to Barry Popik who located the earliest citation
containing the quotation on June 12, 1947. Popik also found additional
strong evidence showing that the event was called "Yogi Berra night".
[End acknowledgement]

Garson


On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 10:33 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> A version of the quotation in the subject line with an ascription to
> Yogi Berra is included in "The Yale Book of Quotations", "The Quote
> Verifier", and several other references. The YBQ has a 1967 citation
> that uses "day" instead of "night":
>
> [Begin quotation]
> I want to thank everyone who made this day necessary.
> [End quotation]
>
> "The Quote Verifier" has a version with "night":
>
> [Begin quotation]
> I'd like to thank everyone who made this night necessary.
> [End quotation]
>
> The Quote Investigator website now has an entry on this topic.
> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/11/12/berra-night/
>
> The first citation uses "night" and is dated August 14, 1947, but I
> have not yet found a contemporaneous news report with the quotation.
> Maybe a St Louis newspaper from July 1947 has a good version.
>
> The phrasing presented has been highly variable during the ensuing
> decades. Even Yogi Berra provided multiple versions in memoirs and
> autobiographies.
>
> Garson

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