[Ads-l] "Will the last person to leave XXX please turn out the lights."

[Bill Mullins]

I've always associated sayings of the subject form with Boeing layoffs in the early 1970s:  "Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights."

1971 San Francisco Chronicle 8 Feb 23/1

Elbert Hubbard, back from Brazil, told Matt Kelly that the Rio airport has signs in several languages reading "Brazil: Love It Or Leave It."  Under the English version, some graffitist, undoubtedly from S.F., has written: Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights."

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1242420909/?match=3&terms=%22%20please%20turn%20out%20the%20lights%22%20%22will%20the%20last%22

No doubt Garson can antedate this by a decade or two.

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