[Ads-l] Groucho--really?

[Laurence Horn]

> On Mar 10, 2017, at 12:39 PM, GEOFFREY NUNBERG <nunbergg at GMAIL.COM> 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.
> 
> I suppose it’s not impossible that Groucho said such a thing in his sad dotage, but the tenor is awfully un-Marxian.


Yes, it certainly doesn’t seem to sit well with the other classic Marxist doctrines, e.g. “Why a duck”, “…Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read”, and of course the philosophers’ favorite, “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member”

LH

> Can anybody help to trace the actual source of the quote—or what’s really more interesting (if I’m right), its first misattribution?
> 
> Geoff
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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