
Would you please explore the history of the last statement?
Of two evils, a journalist will write about the one that gets the most clicks. Of two evils, choose the one you haven’t tried before. Thus, it was either written by a staff member of “Punch”, or it was sent to the magazine by a reader who was compensated.īelow are additional selected citations in chronological order.Ĭontinue reading A Notable Family Named Stein With Gertrude, Ep, and EinĬarolyn Wells? Bruce Porter? Gelett Burgess? Anonymous?ĭear Quote Investigator: The following well-known adage concisely states a controversial moral principle: No attribution was specified for the poem. The final fifth verse suggested that life and art were out of step, and the poem’s creator was down-hearted. The poem was titled “Precious Steins”, and it employed the same splitting wordplay. Quote Investigator: The earliest match for the limerick located by QI appeared in March 1931, and that citation is given further below.Īn interesting precursor occurred in the London humor magazine “Punch” in September 1929.
Would you please explore the provenance of this poem? Wordplay was used to split “Stein” from “Gertrude”, “Ep”, and “Ein”. The three referents were prominent writer Gertrude Stein, influential sculpture Jacob Epstein, and famous scientist Albert Einstein. Lucas? Carolyn Wells? Walter Winchell? Robert Conquest? Anonymous?ĭear Quote Investigator: There is a comical limerick about a “family” named Stein. Reginald Buller? Resident of Brighton? E.