[Ads-l] I'm rubber....

[Jonathan Lighter]

I first heard this now well-known phrase in 1962. It was popularized
further on "Pee Wee's Play House."

1937 _Hopewell [Va.] News_ (Mar. 12) 7 [Newspapers.com]:  When I was
small...[o]ne of us would get angry and say something; the other would say,
"I'm rubber, you're glue: whatever you say goes back and sticks to you."

1950 _St. Louis Globe-Democrat_ (May 26) 5 [Ibid.]:  The Governor, using
the "I'm rubber and you're glue, and everything you say bounces back on
you" technique, blames the Mayor.

1950 _Lebanon [Ill.] Advertiser_ (Nov. 24) 1 [Ibid.]: I'm rubber - you're
glue; / Everything you say to me/ Bounces back and sticks on you.

1959 _Knoxville [Tenn.] Journal_ (July 29) 8: "I'm rubber,/ You're glue. /
What is thrown at me bounces off and sticks on you."

1961 _Jackson County Floridan [sic]_ (Marianna, Fla.) 5 [Ibid.]: I'm rubber
and you're glue - Everything bounces off me and sticks to you.

1961 _Arizona Republic_ (Phoenix, Ariz.) 18 [Ibid.]: I'm rubber and you're
glue./ It bounces off me and sticks on you.

1969 _Tri-City Herald_ (Pasco, Wash.) 13 [Ibid.]:  I'm rubber And [sic]
you're glue, and everything you say bounces back and sticks to you.

Etc., etc.

In pseudo-Shakesperean:

MONTAGUE. I am of pliant, supple whalebone made,
And you are glue.; the insults that you hurl
Bounce off my bouyant frame and stick to you!

-- William Shakespeare*, "Romeo and Juliet, Part 1 (cont.)," V, iii,
 ll. 420-23, in H. Beard, C. Cerf, et al., *The Book of Sequels *(New York:
Random House, 1990), p. 78.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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