[Ads-l] Quote: Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

JL wrote:
> Great find, Fred and Garson.
>
> I wonder if I read my version in Reisner's _Graffiti: Two Thousand Years of
> Wall Writing_ (1971).
>
> But maybe I saw it in situ (i.e., in muro).

"Life is a hereditary disease" is listed on page 156 of "Graffiti: Two
Thousand Years of Wall Writing (1971) by Robert Reisner. I did not
find "Life is a terminal disease" in that book, but the OCR is
imperfect.

The QI article contains a 1968 citation from "Time" magazine for "Life
is a hereditary disease". The "Time" article was actually about
Reisner's class at the New School for Social Research in New York, and
the graffiti that the students were collecting.

Garson

> On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 12:10 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fred's "Yale Book of Quotations" has an pertinent entry:
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> Abraham Cowley
>> English poet, 1618–1667
>>
>> Life is an incurable disease.
>> "To Dr. Scarborough" l. 111 (1656)
>> [End excerpt]
>>
>> Garson
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 11:54 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole
>> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >> Seems to me I heard the variant "Life is a terminal disease" in
>> >> the '70s or '80s.
>> >
>> > Excellent point, JL. While I was searching for "terminal disease" I
>> > was distracted by the variant "fatal disease" with citations in 1943
>> > and 1972. Now I've added a 1971 citation for "terminal disease":
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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