[Ads-l] Quotation: You are all a lost generation

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Sun Sep 25 08:27:44 UTC 2022


You might be wondering about this phrase:

C’est un generation perdu.

In 1925 Ernest Hemingway wrote the above phrase in a proposed foreword
to the book that became “The Sun Also Rises”. Hemingway decided not to
publish the foreword. In any case, he probably should have written:

C’est une génération perdue.

Garson

On Sun, Sep 25, 2022 at 4:15 AM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The latest Quote Investigator article explores the provenance of the
> label applied to the cohort before the “greatest generation”. Here are
> three pertinent phrases:
>
> (1) You are all a lost generation.
> (2) You are all a génération perdue.
> (3) C’est un generation perdu.
>
> Here is a link to the QI article:
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/09/24/lost-generation/
>
> In 1926 Ernest Hemingway published “The Sun Also Rises” which began
> with the following epigraph:
>
> [Begin epigraph]
> “You are all a lost generation.”
> —Gertrude Stein in conversation.
> [End epigraph]
>
> Interestingly, author Gertrude Stein did not coin this phrase, but
> there are two different stories about the originator. Hemingway
> claimed that Stein heard the phrase from an automobile repair shop
> owner. Yet, Stein wrote that she heard the phrase from a hotel keeper.
> Details are given in the QI article.
>
> Feedback welcome
> Garson

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


More information about the Ads-l mailing list