[Ads-l] bite at the apple

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Garson.

JL

On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 12:09 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Jul 22, 2019, at 11:31 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
> adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >> Not in OED:
> >> 'Opportunity to accomplish one's (often unfair) aim'
> >>
> >> Prominent Tweeter today:
> >>
> >> "Highly conflicted Robert Mueller should not be given another bite at
> the
> >> apple."
> >>
> >> 1920 _Christian Science Monitor_ (March 31) 8: A Bite at the Apple
>  While
> >> fully appreciating the desire of the employers to take one bite at the
> >> apple, to settle the vexed problem on a national basis and with a
> universal
> >> standard ....
> >>
> >> 1963  _The [Baltimore] Sun_ (Apr. 25) 48: Mr. Sweeney argued that the
> >> intent of the election laws is "to give a man only one bite at the
> apple,
> >> and said a Kentucky decision held that to permit a defeated candidate to
> >> become a nominee of a political party "is not consonant with good faith
> and
> >> fair dealing."
> >
> > Date: September 24, 1885
> > Newspaper: The Altoona Times
> > Newspaper Location: Altoona, Pennsylvania
> > Article: Pennsylvania Aid To Mahone
> > Quote Page 2, Column 3
> > Database: Newspapers.com
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > Now Blaine wants to break up the solid South and capture it if he can,
> > and that is why he is helping his old opponents."
> > This was indeed awful to think of.
> > "Is Blaine trying to engineer things so he can get another bite at the
> > apple?" was asked of one of the most prominent Blaine men in the city.
> > "No; of course not!" was the answer in a tone of disgusted surprise.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > James G. Blaine was a failed candidate for U.S. President in 1884. I
> > admit that I have not read the article carefully enough to be sure
> > that "Blaine" in the article refers to James G. Blaine.
> >
>
> I suspect so the timing and project are both right. That was the election
> in which the Democrats, with Grover Cleveland as standard-bearer,
> publicized the letters proving Blaine’s briberies, which he first denied,
> and then conceded, leading to the chant;
>
> ""Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of
> Maine”
>
> The Republicans mocked Cleveland for his putative illegitimate daughter:
>
> “Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?
> Gone to the White House, ha ha ha”.
>
> but Blaine was hurt by backlash from a slogan arising from a speech by one
> of his supporters, tarring the Democrats as the party of “Rum, Romanism,
> and rebellion”.  Apparently there were enough drinkers, Catholics, and
> unregenerate Southerners (note the Democrats’ solid south of the alluded to
> in the above reference to Blaine’s attempt to break it up) to vote
> Cleveland in.
>
> The glory days of American electoral politics.
>
> —LH, author of a junior high school report on Grover Cleveland
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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