“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

THE ORIGINAL GODFATHER’S OFFER: “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”        Mario Puzo (1920-1999)        American author and scriptwriter        The catchphrase Puzo created for the Corleone family in his 1969 novel The Godfather        This line gained worldwide fame after the 1972 movie adaptation of the novel became a blockbuster hit. It is first used in the novel by the Mafia “Godfather” Don Vito Corleone. When Italian singer and actor Johnny Fontane tells Don Corleone that a Hollywood movie executive had refused to give him a role he wanted in an upcoming film, Don Corleone tells Johnny he’ll convince the studio executive to change his mind. “He’s a businessman,” the Don explains. “I’ll make him an offer he can't refuse.”        Corleone sends his consigliere, Tom Hagen, to visit the studio exec and make a seemingly polite request to have Johnny reconsidered for the movie role. The studio exec refuses. Soon after that, he finds the severed head of his prized stud racehorse in his bed—and quickly decides to give Johnny the part. Later in the novel, Vito’s son Michael Corleone also says “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”       In the movie adaptation, the famous “offer” line used by Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone is slightly different. Brando says “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Later in the film, Al Pacino, as Michael, says “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”        Of course, in the novel and film the “offer” is a veiled threat used with chilling effect. As part of our language, mentions of offers that can’t be refused are now typically used more for humorous effect.        Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather in his spare time while working as a writer for men’s pulp adventure magazines in the 1960s. For more background on this famous quote, see the post about it on my ThisDayinQuotes.com site.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SUPREME COURT OFFER: “In the context of the Supreme Court vacancy, President Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland may be the hardest for Republicans to reject...Garland’s nomination comes the closest to making Senate Republicans an offer they can’t afford to refuse. On the merits — and this is no slight to the other finalists; Garland simply has the longevity — he is the best qualified. He is the most moderate nominee Republicans could reasonably expect. His downside, in the view of Democrats, his age, should be a confirmation plus in the eyes of Republicans.”        Ruth Marcus        American political columnist        Commenting in her March 18, 2016 column in the Washington Post about the dilemma Republicans face if they refuse to hold hearings on or reject President Obama’s moderate nominee to replace the late Justice Scalia. If they don’t approve Judge Garland, they face the fact Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders could be elected president in November 2016, and their nominee could be more liberal and less palatable to Republican Conservatives.

THE MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD (BEFORE HE RETIRED): “I don’t always make an offer...But when I do, you can't refuse.”         A meme posted on MemeCrunch.com featuring the now retired “Most Interesting Man in the World.” (I miss him already.)

WEIRD AL’S POLKA PLEA: “You can scratch up my records, you can drink my booze... You can make me an offer I can't refuse But darling, please don’t wear those shoes.”        “Weird Al” Yankovic        American musician, satirist and shoe critic        Lyrics from his song “Don’t Wear Those Shoes” on his Polka Party album (1986)

A CRITIC’S VIEW OF “BOJACK HORSEMAN”: “This horse’s head is an offer you can refuse.”        Brian Lowry        TV critic for Variety magazine        In his August 13, 2014 review of the Netflix animated comedy show Bojack Horseman. The main character is a talking horse (voiced by Will Arnett) who once appeared in a popular sitcom but is now forgotten, depressed and bitter. Although most critics seem to agree with Lowry’s assessment, the show has been popular enough with viewers to be continued by Netflix for three seasons.

A CRITIC’S VIEW OF “THE GODFATHER’S REVENGE”: “An offer you might want to refuse.”        Carol Memmott        American book critic and entertainment writer        From her review of Mark Winegardner’s 2004 novel The Godfather’s Revenge, a sequel to Mario Puzo’s Godfather series. The book was a best seller, despite the opinion of Memmott.

THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT SOPRANOS JOKE: “You hear about the Chinese Godfather?  He made them an offer they couldn’t understand.”        The character Uncle Junior (played by Dominic Chianese) in The Sopranos TV series        Uncle Junior told this lame joke to his buddies in Season 1, Episode 4 of the series        Word and phrase maven Barry Popik has noted on his great site, The Big Apple, that there was an earlier version of this joke that poked fun at both gangsters and lawyers: “What do you get when you cross a gangster with an attorney? An offer you can’t understand.”

THE POSSIBLY CORRECT JUNK MAIL SOLUTION: “Here’s what I do to them and every other asshole that sends me an offer I want to refuse. I take all the mail they sent, plus whatever crap is lying around the house (used rubbers, rat shit, gum, those insert cards from other magazines) and I stuff it all into the prepaid reply envelope and send the junk mail right back.”          Josh Saitz        Editor of the Negative Capability online zine        In a post on the zine titled “How to Cope with Assholes”

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“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

LUCRETIUS’ ANCIENT LATIN VERSION: “Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum.” (An early Latin version of the proverb “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”)        Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus; c. 99 B.C. - c. 55 B.C.)        Roman poet and philosopher.        These words from Book IV of Lucretius’ long poem explaining the Epicurean philosophy, De rerum natura (“On the Nature of Things”), are often credited as either the origin or earliest known use of the saying “One man’s meat is another man’s poison,” meaning that something that’s good for one person may be bad for another. It’s likely that Lucretius was repeating or riffing on an existing Latin proverb.        The meat/poison version is a popularized English translation of what Lucretius wrote. A more literal translation, like that provided by William Ellery Leonard in his classic 1916 translation of De rerum natura is “...what is food to one to some becomes fierce poison.” The Latin word cibus is usually translated as food rather than as meat. The words caro and carnis are the more common Latin words for meat. Acre means sharp, intense or fierce. Venenum can be variously translated as venom, drug, bane, curse or poison.        Thus, the English proverb could have taken many alternate forms. But it was the meat/poison version that became embedded in our language. The Oxford English Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs note that by 1604 the saying was already referred to as an “ould moth-eaten” English proverb. Over the centuries, the meat vs. poison template inspired countless others, including a few that have become equally proverbial, most notably “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”        Some of my own favorite adaptations are below.

THE TRANSCENDENTALIST’S VIEWPOINT: “One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly as one beholds the same objects from a higher point.”           Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)         American essayist, poet and lecturer         A quote from his essay “Circles,” included in his book Essays, First Series (1841)

THE COMPUTER PROGRAMMER’S VIEWPOINT: “One man’s constant is another man’s variable.”          Alan J. Perlis (1922-1990)        American computer programming pioneer and longtime Chair of Computer Science at Yale        One of the most widely-quoted “Perlisms.” It’s included in his article “Epigrams in Programming,” which was published in the September 1982 journal of the Association for Computing Machinery's SIGPLAN (“Special Interest Group on Programming Languages”).        Constant and variable are terms used in computer programming. A constant is a code identifier that cannot be altered by the program during execution. A variable is an identifier for a value that can be changed as the program runs.

THE FIFTY SHADES OF GREY PRINCIPLE: “One woman’s pornographic subjugation to male power is another woman’s erotic enthrallment.”          Roberta Schreyer (1954-2001)        Associate Professor of English at Potsdam State College killed in a tragic car accident in 2001        From her essay about the controversial Brian De Palma film Body Double in the anthology Bodily Discursions: Genders, Representations, Technologies (1997).        In Body Double, an actor (played by Craig Wasson), becomes involved in a murder mystery and a relationship with a female porn movie actress named “Holly Body” (Melanie Griffith), who stars in pornographic films like Holly Does Hollywood (a faux homage to the porn classic Debby Does Dallas).

THE IFFY SHADES OF P.C. PRINCIPLE: “We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist.”          Stephen Jukes        Former Global News Editor for the Reuters news agency, now a professor at Bournemouth University in the UK        An infamous quote from a memo Jukes sent to Reuters journalists shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, telling them not to use terms like terrorist and terrorist attacks to describe what most of us would call terrorists and terrorist attacks. Jukes tried to explain the policy by adding: “We’re trying to treat everyone on a level playing field, however tragic it’s been and however awful and cataclysmic for the American people and people around the world.”        The Reuters policy on “t” words has been widely criticized by some observers as an absurd example of political correctness and praised by others as an attempt at objective journalism. In reality, it did not turn out to be an actual ban on “t” words in Reuters articles. Many Reuters news stories use terms like terrorists, terrorist attack and acts of terrorism when they are based on things said or written by government officials or other people who are quoted or cited.

THE LAZARUS LONG THEOLOGY PRINCIPLE: “One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.”          Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)         American writer best known for his science fiction stories and novels        This is one of the many witty aphorisms of the main character in Heinlein’s novel Time Enough for Love: the Lives of Lazarus Long (1973). It’s included in the chapter titled: “INTERMISSION: Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long,” just before the before the belly laugh-worthy observation: “Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys: it’s more sanitary.”

THE FISH PUN VARIATION: “One woman’s meat is another woman’s poisson.”          Gwen Davis        American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, songwriter, journalist and poet        A quip in her novel Romance (1983), using the French word for word for fish

THE DOG PUN VARIATION: “One man’s pet is another man’s peeve.”          Poster tagline for the comedy movie How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog (2000)        In the movie, an L.A. playwright (played by Kenneth Branagh) is plagued by a series of annoyances, including a senile mother-in-law, a wife whose biological clock is ticking, impotency, writer’s block and a neighborhood dog that barks all night.

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“I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.”

GEORGE M. COHAN’S LEGENDARY NAME QUIP: “I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right.” (Usually paraphrased as “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.”)        George M. Cohan (1878-1942)          American singer, dancer, actor, playwright, composer and producer         This old show business axiom is most closely associated with Cohan, though it has been attributed to many other celebrities, including P. T. Barnum, W. C. Fields, Will Rogers, Mae West, Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde, as well as to several prominent politicians, such as Harry Truman and Tammany Hall leader “Big Tim” Sullivan.         According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and other quotation reference books, Cohan spoke the longer version shown above in 1912 when a reporter interviewed him about one of his upcoming musical shows. That quote is also noted in the definitive biography of Cohan written by John McCabe. Cohan may also have used the better-known, short version “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right,” but there’s no clear documentation for it that I could find. The classic quip about name spelling seems to have been floating around in show business and politics in the late 1800s. It’s doubly humorous in Cohan’s case, since his last name was sometimes misspelled as “Cohen.” However, it’s uncertain whether Cohan coined the saying. On the other hand, no one seems to have been able to document an earlier use by P.T. Barnum or anyone else. There is documentation for an earlier variation of the line by Cohan himself. In a reminiscence he wrote for the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper in 1926, Cohan recalled telling his sister “I don't care what they say about me, so long as they keep mentioning my name” in a conversation he had with her in 1898.

THE FUNNY GIRL’S FUNNY NAME QUIP: “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name wrong.”        Barbra Streisand        American singer and actress        Remark accepting a 1970 award for “Best Female Singer of the Year” in an Ed Sullivan Show special        In Streisand’s case it was doubly (or maybe triply) humorous because her first name was often misspelled as “Barbara,” while she used the “wrong” spelling Barbra.

THE MARK TWAIN FORERUNNER QUOTE: “I don’t mind what the opposition say of me, so long as they don’t tell the truth.”        Mark Twain (1835-1910)        American author and humorist         From a speech Twain gave in Hartford, Connecticut on October 26, 1880        This quote is probably the reason why the show biz saying George M. Cohan made famous is wrongly attributed to Twain. It comes from the part of the speech in which Twain made some remarks about politics that still ring true. “[Y]ou don’t get anything out of the opposition but a noble, good supply of infamous episodes in your own private life which you hadn’t heard of before,” he said. “However, I don’t mind these things particularly. It is the only intelligent and patriotic way of conducting a campaign. I don’t mind what the opposition say of me, so long as they don’t tell the truth about me; but when they descend to telling the truth about me, I consider that that is taking an unfair advantage.”

TALLULAH BANKHEAD’S VERSION: “I don’t care what they say as long as they talk about me.”         Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968)         American stage and film actress           Her personal version of the show business axiom        Bankhead appears to have used this line more than once to deal with criticism of her notorious lifestyle, which included heavy drinking, various drugs, and affairs with both men and women. It became thought of as one of her catchphrases, along with her use of the word “Darling! at the beginning of sentences. (Spoken with her posh accent as “Dah-ling!”). The earliest use I found is noted in the 1999 biography of Bankhead written by Bryony Lavery. It recounts an anecdote that occurred around 1921. Tallulah's sister Eugenia overhead someone at a party say “Everyone knows her sister is a lesbian.” Eugenia responded by throwing an ice pick at the blabbermouth. Tallulah nonchalantly told her sister: “I don’t care what they say as long as they talk about me.”

THE DOROTHY PARKER/KATHERINE HEPBURN VERSION: “I don’t care what is written about me, so long as it isn’t true.”        Attributed to both writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) and actress Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003)        This line is widely credited to both of these great ladies by many websites and books, but without any specific citations of when either of them may have actually said it. If you know of any documented sources, please shoot me an email and let me know. In Hepburn’s case, it would have been another example of a doubly humorous twist, since her first name was sometimes misspelled as “Katherine.”

DALE EARNHARDT’S VARIATION: “I don’t care what they call me as long as I get to the bank on Monday.”         Dale Earnhardt (1951-2001)        American race car driver, team owner and NASCAR star         Commenting on the fact that other race car drivers complained about his aggressive driving style and used a number of negative-sounding nicknames for him, such as “The Intimidator” (and worse). Quoted in the book The Sporting World of the Modern South (2002), by Patrick B. Miller.

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“Truth is stranger than fiction…”

BYRON’S FAMOUS LINES: “‘Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange;    Stranger than fiction.”        Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron; (1788-1824)          British poet         In his epic poem Don Juan (1819-1824)           The phrase “strange but true” dates back as least as far back as around 1599, when it was used by William Shakespeare in Act III, Scene IV of his play Macbeth. But Lord Byron’s poem Don Juan is credited as the origin of the proverbial saying “truth is stranger than fiction” and it has spawned many uses and variations since then.

THE TOP UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE 2016 PRIMARY CAMPAIGN: “This year’s election has a certain stranger than fiction quality to it.”        Anna Silman        American writer and poltiical journalist        In an article about the 2016 Presidential Primary campaign in the online magazine Salon        (Cartoon by Dan Wasserman.)

THE POLITICS AS USUAL QUOTE: “In politics, truce is stranger than friction.”         Evan Esar (1899–1995)        American humorist and author        In his book 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1995)

TWAIN’S “PUDD’NHEAD” VARIATIONS: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” “Truth is stranger than fiction—to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.”        Mark Twain (1835-1910)        American humorist, journalist and novelist         Two of the “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar” epigrams used at the beginning of chapters in Twain's 1897 travelogue Following the Equator (also known as More Tramps Abroad).

TWAIN’S POSTHUMOUS VARIATION: “Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.”         Another one of the many quips Mark Twain wrote about the subject of “truth”        This line was recorded by Twain in a notebook in 1898. It’s included in the posthumously-published collection of excerpts from his notebooks and journals, Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935).

THE PORTLANDIA PUBLIC ACCESS CHANNEL VERSION: “Public broadcasting is stranger than fiction.”         Description of a video posted on YouTube.com by “sryokan” that shows funny excerpts from Channel 11, the local public access channel in Portlandia, er, I mean Portland, Oregon.

THE CNN “SHOWBIZ TONIGHT” SCHTICK: “Tonight!…Are they really saving Michael Jackson’s brain? Did Jackson really try to rescue Lisa Ling’s sister from North Korea? The truth behind the Jackson stories that are stranger than fiction.”        A.J. Hammer         Former host of the CNN channel’s “Showbiz Tonight” segment        In a “news” piece about Michael Jackson aired on CNN, July 10, 2009. (I saw the piece and wrote down the quote, figuring that I’d eventually need another gonzo quote for this blog.)

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“A ticket to ride” – from the Beatles to Celine Dion to primary politics and LOLdogs…

THE FAMOUS BEATLES LYRIC: “She’s got a ticket to ride, but she don’t care.”        The Beatles        The well-known line from the chorus of their 1965 song “Ticket to Ride,” featured in their movie HELP!        Like many Beatles songs, “Ticket to Ride” is officially credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney but was primarily written by one of them (in this case Lennon). The lyrics tell the story of a guy who’s “gonna be sad” because his girlfriend is dumping him and “going away.” It’s a bit unclear what her “ticket to ride” refers to. It could be a ticket on some form of public transportation. It could allude to her relationship with the guy, a “ride” she no longer cares about.        According to many websites and books about the Beatles, Lennon once suggested in his typically cheeky (and often tongue-in-cheek) fashion that he coined the phrase when the band was playing in Hamburg, Germany in the early 1960s. The local prostitutes there had to get regular medical checkups. Those who passed were given a card confirming they had no venereal disease — which Lennon said he dubbed “a ticket to ride.” Another theory in Beatles lore is that “ticket to ride” was a pun about the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. One of McCartney’s cousins ran a bar there that he and Lennon visited together, after buying a ticket on the British Railways train to Ryde.

CELINE'S INSPIRING VARIATION: “It’s important to open your eyes in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and ask two questions: ‘Are you dead, or do you have a ticket to ride?’...If you’re alive, have a good day. Because today is the most important day of your life.”        Celine Dion        Canadian musical star        Comment to the press in September 2015 about the how she tried to deal with the fact that her husband and manager René Angélil was gravely ill with throat cancer. Celine and René used their tickets to ride together every day until he passed away on January 14, 2016.

A PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY TICKET TO NOWHERE: “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’re in the hunt!...I’d say third place is a ticket to ride, ladies and gentleman! Hello, South Carolina!”        Jon Huntsman         The former Governor of Utah who ran as a Republican presidential candidate in 2012         Comment in a speech on the night of January 10, 2012, after taking third place in New Hampshire’s Republican primary        Huntsman’s use of “ticket to ride” was his attempt at a clever sound bite suggesting that he had the momentum needed to continue his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in the upcoming South Carolina primary election. Several days later, when polls showed Mitt Romney would likely beat him by a wide margin, Huntsman dropped out of the Republican primary race before the Palmetto State’s primary was held.

STEPHEN COLBERT’S QUIP ABOUT HUNTSMAN: “Yes, he’s got a ticket to ride and we don’t care.”        Stephen Colbert         Former host the Comedy Channel’s Colbert Report TV show         Spoofing Huntsman’s reference to the Beatles’ song on the January 11, 2012 episode of the Colbert Report

A PUZZLER FOR DEEP THINKERS: “If she’s got a ticket to ride, why don’t she care? Why did she buy it in the first place?”         Blogger “Quincy the Wolf”         In one of the “Deep Thoughts” posted in his online journal

A NOT TOO DEEP (BUT VERY CUTE) LOLDOG: “SHE’S GOT A CHICKEN TO RIDE AND SHE DON’T CARE”         Caption on an ihasahotdog.com photo

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