[Ads-l] Quote: The man who is good at making an excuse is seldom good at anything else

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Mar 8 20:36:44 UTC 2018


> On Mar 8, 2018, at 1:52 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Mark Mandel wrote:
>> No, I take it back. "D.F." is in the source.
> . . .
>> And presumably
>> 
>> Anecdotes of D.F.  ->  Anecdotes of B.F.
>> 
>> Yes?
> 
> "Anecdotes of D. F." is specified in the text of "Liber Facetiarum". I
> did not see any other matches within Google Books for the phrase
> "Anecdotes of D. F."
> 
> "D. F." might refer to "Dr. Franklin", but I think that would be an
> odd initialism. As you imply "B. F." makes more sense for "Benjamin
> Franklin”.
> 

Yes, you’d think the reference would at least be to “Dr. F”, celebrated inventor of bifocals, kite-borne electricity, and the dunk.
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