[Ads-l] "Try to Please Everybody"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Great work Peter and John. The article in "The Decatur Herald" was
about a 1928 book called "The Low-Down" by Charles G. Shaw (Charles
Green Shaw). The book has a section about Swope. There is a match on
page 215 for the newspaper excerpt text according to GB although the
snippet does not show the matching text. (That is a common problem
with GB.)

Here is a link into GB:
https://books.google.com/books?id=nZE8AQAAIAAJ&

Barry Popik has an entry on this topic with a solid match on December
27, 1950 within a column by Leonard Lyons about the speech by Swope.

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/i_can_give_you_the_formula_for_failure_try_to_please_everybody

The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations refers to a speech by Swope on
December 20, 1950. The same date mentioned by Fred, but I wonder how
this date was obtained. Was it based on the column by Lyons?

Garson


On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 2:49 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Of Herbert B. Swope, executive editor of The World, it is written that 'he thinks the reporter is the most important cog in the great newspaper machine and considers human nature the thing most necessary to understand in dealing with news. * * *  He believes in encouraging individualism, just as he believes a really good newspaper must necessarily contain an element of discontent.  The most successful way of being an unsuccessful journalist, he asserts, is to try to please every one."
>
>
> The Decatur Herald(Decatur, Illinois), 17 Mar 1928, Page 8.   Newspapers.com.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, May 8, 2017 10:49:17 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "Try to Please Everybody"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "Try to Please Everybody"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A Treasury of Business Quotations has "I cannot give you the formula for su=
> ccess, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please =
> everybody," citing it to an address by Herbert B. Swope, Dec. 20, 1950.  Ca=
> n anyone point me to any earlier occurrences of this or similar (maybe "eve=
> ryone" instead of "everybody") quotations?
>
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
>
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