[Ads-l] Quip Origin: There Are More Horses' Asses Than Horses

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Thanks for your valuable response, Bill. The fact that Gershon Legman
accepted the date is intriguing. I agree with your suggestion that
much of the material in the book was created or collected in 1928 or
before.

My message of November 26 pointed to a mock form with a spot to enter
the year. The year begins with “192”. Hence, the book’s instance of
the form was probably constructed in the 1920s. (See page 71.) The
November 26 message also highlighted the joke containing the phrase
“1928 flappers” which you also mentioned. (See page 10.)

In addition, the book contains a joke in which Henry Ford is alive.
(See page  27.) This contradicts the joke in which Henry Ford is dead.
(See page 45.)

It is tempting to accept the 1928 date. But some joke books are
revised and updated for decades. The joke with the deceased Henry Ford
may have been added during a revision.

The second to last scanned page refers to an article that was
published in March 1951. It is unclear how and why these final two
pages were attached to the book. The pages are apparently a supplement
to the German material in the book.

The final section titled NEW STORIES I HAVE HEARD MEMORANADA may have
been added during a revision.

Garson

On Thu, Dec 12, 2024 at 6:50 PM Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> The 1928 dating of "The Book of a Thousand Laughs" seems to come from Gershon Legman, whose cite of the booklet in his 1964 The Hornbook seems to be the first place it is recognized.  Legman dates it because of its similarity to other similar works from that time, apparently.
>
> Garson cites a joke about the death of Henry Ford as internal evidence that the book is from 1947 or later, but allows that this simply may be part of the set up of the joke and not referring to an historical event.
>
> I think that internal evidence more strongly supports a date of late 1920s than a date 20 years later.
> — There are multiple references to the "Great War", as WWI was called in the years before WW2; there are no references to WW2 (in fact, I don't see any references to specific events that could be dated after 1928).
> — By asking "when were they most famous" about people named in the book,  (John Barrymore, Irving Berlin, Charlie Chaplin, Henry ford, Houdini, John Millais, John Ruskin, Lowell Sherman, von Hindenburg), I think 1928 is a better candidate for publication than ~1948.
> -- There is one joke that dates itself as 1928: "Why do all the 1928 flappers pray on Sunday?"
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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