[Ads-l] Why George Bernard Shaw opposed cut flowers in vases

[Dan Goncharoff]

"The world and his wife" is a phrase that goes back to Swift, meaning
everybody.

I wonder if it is the name of a newspaper or magazine column.

On Mon, Oct 3, 2022, 7:28 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The inquiry from Pete Morris inspired me to explore a different quip
> attributed to George Bernard Shaw. Here is a link to the Quote
> Investigator article:
>
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/10/03/cut-flowers/
>
> Here is the first citation.
>
> [ref] 1906 February 5, Boston Evening Transcript, Mr. Shaw’s
> Rejoinders, Quote Page 5, Column 4, Boston, Massachusetts.
> (Newspapers_com) [/ref]
>
> <Begin excerpt>
> MR. SHAW’S REJOINDERS
> [From the World and His Wife]
> Someone once offered to send Mr. G. B. Shaw a box of game; but he
> replied that he would rather die than live at the price of bloodshed.
> So the anxious donor offered flowers. “Surely, you must be fond of
> flowers, Mr. Shaw?” “So I am of children,” he replied, “but I don’t
> cut off their heads, and stick them in pots about the room.”
> <End excerpt>
>
> The newspaper stated that the tale was: “From the World and His Wife”.
> This might mean that Shaw’s wife made the attribution in the pages of
> “The New York World”. During subsequent weeks and months the story
> appeared in numerous newspapers including “The Chicago Daily Tribune”
> of Illinois and the “Los Angeles Express” of California.
>
> Garson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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