[Ads-l] Quip: insurmountable opportunity (Request help)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Back in January I sent a request message to the list about a saying
attributed to Walt Kelly's "Pogo" comic strip. An article on the topic
is now available:

We Are Confronted by an Insurmountable Opportunity
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/04/10/opportunity/

[Begin acknowledgement excerpt]
Many thanks to Bonnie Taylor-Blake who accessed the 1956 and 1959
citations. Special thanks to Ben Zimmer who identified some valuable
1968 citations from W. Willard Wirtz. Additional thanks to John Baker
and Robin Hamilton for their “Pogo” expertise.
[End acknowledgement excerpt]

Feedback welcome
Garson


On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 9:37 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mardy Grothe asked me to explore a fractured English quip commonly
> ascribed to Walt Kelly's "Pogo" comic strip. Here are two versions:
>
> 1) We is faced with insurmountable opportunity.
> 2) America is a land of insurmountable opportunities.
>
> The first linkage to "Pogo" I've seen appeared on March 24, 1968 in a
> newspaper report about a speech delivered by Secretary of Labor W.
> Willard Wirtz who ascribed version 1 above to "Pogo".
>
> It would be nice to have information about the precise "Pogo" comic
> strip containing the phrase "insurmountable opportunity" or
> "insurmountable opportunities". Yet, it is possible that the "Pogo"
> claim is a red herring. The core joke was in circulation more than a
> decade earlier.
>

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