[Ads-l] Quote: Politicians, like diapers, should be changed regularly (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

> On May 14, 2019, at 4:19 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for your response. Bill. Barry states that an instance of the
> socks/women saying occurred in the 1943 John Wayne film "A Lady Takes
> a Chance". (I have not seen the movie.) That is probably the source of
> the citation you present.
> 
> [Begin excerpt from Barry Popik's entry]
> “Socks” is an early form of the saying and is sometimes used instead
> of “diapers.” “Women is like socks...you gotta change ‘em regular”
> from the movie A Lady Takes a Chance (1943) perhaps influenced this
> version.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> I listed the 1943 book "Thesaurus of Epigrams" by Edmund Fuller. The
> chronology is uncertain (to me) because the precise publication date
> of the book is not listed. It is possible that Fuller grabbed the
> saying from the film. Alternatively, the saying was already in
> circulation. Books and films both have long gestations.
> 
> Garson
> 
> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 3:08 PM MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY
> CCDC AVMC (USA) <0000099bab68be9a-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu>
> wrote:
>> 
>> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>> 
>> 
>> _Columbus [OH] Dispatch_ 23 Oct 1943 p 6 col 2
>> 
>> "[John] Wayne plays a cowboy whose theory is that women, like socks, should be changed often.”

“…and for the same reason”? 
 
That’s what makes the politicians version more memorable—besides losing the whiff of misogyny.

LH

>> 
>>> ----
>>> 
>>> Historian Ron Chernow addressed the White House Correspondents Association dinner back on Saturday April 29, 2019, and he referred to
>>> the saying in the subject line.
>>> 
>>> Barry Popik and I have entries about this quip on our websites (and I started a mailing-list thread on the topic back in 2018). The words are
>>> often incorrectly ascribed to Mark Twain.
>>> 
>>> Now the website entries have been updated with newly discovered illuminating citations.
>>> 
>>> Politicians Are Like Diapers. They Should Be Changed Regularly https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/10/17/diaper/
>>> 
>>> “Politicians and diapers should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason”
>>> http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/politicians_and_diapers_should_both_be_changed_regularly_and_for_the_sa
>>> me_r
>>> 
>>> An interesting precursor in 1952 used "socks" instead of "diapers".
>>> 
>>> [ref]1952 September 10, Boston Traveler, (Letter to the editor from John Q. of Roslindale), Letter title: No Re-Elections, Quote Page 26,
>>> Column 5, Boston, Massachusetts. (GenealogyBank) [/ref]
>>> 
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> If a politician needs to hold office but six years to get a pension let's all go to the polls and see that he doesn’t hold office that long. Office
>>> holders, like socks, should be changed often and for very much the same reason.
>>> [End excerpt]
>>> 
>>> Garson
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 8:38 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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