Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words
Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words…
Michael Comenetz asks if the phrase “Galloping Gordon,” sometimes applied to British prime minister Gordon Brown, originated with…
Suzanne Ekman hopes someone can identify a source for the following line, possibly from a Mark Van Doren poem: “…but where were…
Marcia Chellis requests a source for “Everything is high school.” Barbara Murray would like to verify an anecdote involving…
Editor’s note: “If anything can go wrong, it will,” officially identified as “Murphy’s Law” in our copy of…
Kenneth Kronenberg seeks the definitive source for “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a…
Steve Plank hopes to learn who said (as he puts it), “We should each conduct our lives in such a way that if everyone were to do the same…
~Who proclaimed that photography is to painting as water is to wine? ~Who protested, “They have taken away all our liberties—now…
Wayles Brown asks whether anyone can provide an exact source and the precise wording for a comment often attributed to Oscar Wilde: “The…
Martha Neumann hopes to learn if Freud indeed made a comment often attributed to him: Immortality is being loved by many anonymous people. Ann…
Wayles Brown seeks to locate a story about a boy of English and Hindu parentage who encounters the word “Eurasian” and asks his…
Anne Daniels wonders if someone can identify the following statement, which was “evidently well-known in England in the 1890s”: Is…
Rick Stanford asks if anyone can provide the title and author of a poem that begins with the line, “Twenty inglorious Miltons looked at a…
James Wallace seeks to learn the origin of, and find more verses of, parody lyrics for “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1,” by…
Copyright ©1996–2009Harvard Magazine Inc.Contact the webmaster