[Ads-l] "...would you hold it against me?"

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Feb 22 04:58:20 UTC 2024


Ben Zimmer initiated this discussion thread back on September 6, 2023.
Now, there is a Quote Investigator article.

Quote Origin: If I Told You That You Have a Gorgeous Figure Would You
Hold It Against Me?
Groucho Marx? David Bellamy? Max Miller? Monty Python? George Little?
Barney Horrigan? Anonymous?

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/02/21/figure-hold/

[Begin Acknowledgement]
Great thanks to linguist Ben Zimmer, quotation expert Nigel Rees, and
music critic Tom Breihan whose writings on this topic led QI to
formulate this question and perform this exploration. Breihan
mentioned the song by the Bellamy Brothers and the attribution to
Groucho Marx. Zimmer located key early citations in 1945, 1948, and
more. He also found the attribution to Groucho in 1979. Rees mentioned
the dialog version of the joke, and he noted the attribution to Max
Miller.
[End Acknowledgement]

Feedback welcome
Garson O’Toole

On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 2:23 AM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The joke was used by Monty Python in the "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook"
> sketch which Wikipedia claims was "first aired in 1970 on Monty
> Python's Flying Circus as part of Episode 25".
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Hungarian_Phrasebook
>
> Here is a link to a YouTube clip. The joke is spoken at 1 minute 29 seconds.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao
>
> Garson

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