[Ads-l] Groucho--really?

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jun 6, 2017, at 4:42 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Back on March 10, 2017 Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
>> The following quotation is widely ascribed to Groucho Marx:
>> 
>> I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.
>> I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't
>> arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.
> 
> The Quote Investigator website now has an entry on this topic.
> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/05/happy-today/
> 
> [Begin acknowledgement]
> Great thanks to Geoffrey Nunberg whose inquiry led QI to formulate
> this question and perform this exploration. Thanks to mailing list
> discussants: Laurence Horn, Jonathan Lighter, Peter Morris, Ben
> Zimmer, George Thompson, and Mark Mandel. Jonathan Lighter located the
> 1869 citation. Morris identified the connection to the contestant on
> “You Bet Your Life. Zimmer noted that the owner of the “Chicago
> Tribune” supported spelling reform, and the spelling of “philosofy”
> was deliberate.

“Philosofy”?  Sounds like half-hearted spelling reform!  (Or maybe it was intentional, allowing for it to be interpretable as either ‘love of wisdom’ or ‘love of sofas’.)

LH

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