[Ads-l] Quote: Cary Grant telegram anecdote - update

[James Landau]

On   Wed, 1 Jan 2020 18:34:55 Zone-0500  ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Today, a correspondent let me know that he had located the pertinent> article in the now digitized "Minneapolis Tribune". The QI article has> been updated.>> “How Old Cary Grant?” “Old Cary Grant Fine, How You?”> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/30/how-old-cary-grant/ Two minor corrections to the QI article: " The three letter acronym INS in the following excerpt stands for International News Service, a competitor to the AP and UPI news services" INS was not a competitor to UPI.  It was a competitor to AP and UP.  In 1958 INS was merged into UP, forming UPI. As I recall the matter, my father quoted the telegram as reading, “Please wire how old Gar Wood is.”  The awkward phrasing, ending as it does in a preposition, may have irritated him. Anyhow he replied, “Old Gar Wood fine.  How you?”" The phrasing ends in a verb, not a preposition, and should be "sic-ed". Aside to Arnold Zwicky and Jonathan Lighter:  in 1991, my daughter, then 4, used the term "chapter book" and the librarians were familiar with the term. - Jim Landau  

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