I recently learned that Dorothy Parker did not say, “This is not a book for lightly tossing aside. It should be thrown with great force.” Turns out it was coined by one-time L.A. Times sports editor Sid Ziff. All this time I was certain it was Parker.
I know, what possible difference does it make? None, really. It’s still a great quote. But now I have to figure out what IS my favorite Dorothy Parker quote. No small task.
And this is how my brain works. I had started because I wanted to confirm the exact wording of the quote. I hate it when someone quotes something and I know they’ve got the words wrong, even if just slightly. It’s jarring, and I didn’t want to do the same thing. So I looked it up in several places and discovered to my chagrin that she didn’t say it, Ziff did. This led me to a precis of Sid Ziff’s life – interesting guy, he became sports editor of the L.A. Express at the age of 19 – then to Dorothy Parker and finally to a website – one of many – dedicated to the celebrated wits of the Algonquin Round Table.
From there I was drawn to a review of a play about Dorothy Parker being staged in Los Angeles (too late, it closed last week) and thence to a collection of some of the less-known members of the Round Table.
That’s where I found this short essay by Heywood Broun. It has several laugh-out-loud moments and it’s amusing all the way through. Reminds me of of the tone of Wolcott Gibbs, James Thurber. E.B. White and others of that era.
Broun is comparing Ruth and Roth – that is, Babe Ruth and Filibert Roth, a professor of forestry at the University of Michigan. Don’t ask, just read the story here. It contains this great line:
“Just what difference does it make if Mr. Roth errs in his timber physics? It merely means that a certain number of students leave Michigan knowing a little less than they should – and nobody expects anything else from students.”
I loved the essay. Also, in my poking around, I was relieved to discover that Dorothy Parker’s most famous line is both genuine and well documented. During a word game, she was challenged to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence and came up with this: “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
A gem.
BaurLife 