[Ads-l] Joke: Television: It's called a medium because it=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=never well done

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is another version of the wordplay joke in the subject line:
Television is called a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.

Comedian Goodman Ace wrote a letter to Groucho Marx containing an
instance of the subject line quip in 1953. In 1973 “The Filmgoer’s
Book of Quotes” by Leslie Halliwell credited the joke to comedian
Ernie Kovacs.

Many references attribute the joke to Goodman Ace or Ernie Kovacs
while presenting one of these citations (or no citations), e.g.:

The Macmillan Dictionary of Quotations (1989)
The Best Guide to Humorous Quotations (2011)
Encarta Book of Quotations (2000)
Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (2008)
The Yale Book of Quotations (2006)

The Quote Investigator website now has an entry on this topic with a
1950 citation ascribing the joke to Fred Allen.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/07/24/tv/

Feedback welcome
Garson

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