S. Barret Dolph wrote:
Actually there is no need to quote Heinlein as it is not his. Years ago in NYC
one could get food for free if one purchased beer. But some would try to get
food without a purchase. Thus signs were put up saything, "There is no such
thing as a free lunch"
Cordially,
S. Barret Dolph
Taipei Taiwan
On Saturday 27 August 2005 06:09, _z33 wrote:
Jeff Woods wrote:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
-- from the Robert Heinlein novel: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Google's "feeling lucky" (i.e. first) result for TANSTAAFL:
http://jargon.net/jargonfile/t/TANSTAAFL.html
worth putting that phrase on my desktop :)
Ah, nothing like an argument (excuse me; a discussion) about the origin
of a phrase to get the list moving.
Although Heinlein popularized both the phrase and the acronym, at least
among science-fiction readers, he originated neither.
Unfortunately, my standard off-line references (Bartlett's, Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable) do
not include this aphorism. But there are better on-line sources than
jargonfile for investigating the origins of words and phrases.
This URL -- http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorf.htm [scroll down to "Free
Lunch"] is, to my mind, the most trustworthy source of origin
information, taking it (the phrase and the acronym) back to 1949 in San
Francisco. In contrast to all other "origin" stories (except the
Heinlein one), this site gives specific primary-source references.
I did see on another site (http://www.answers.com/topic/tanstaafl) the
assertion that NYC mayor La Guardia spoke the phrase, albeit in Latin,
in 1934. No mention of the occasion, though. This site --
http://www.word-detective.com/back-a2.html -- also references the La
Guardia story, referencing the Random House Historical Dictionary of
American Slang. (I couldn't quickly get my hands on that book, so I
don't know if it offers a primary source.)
Several sites note that the "free lunch" promotion gimmick itself goes
back to the 1850s, and at least one speculates that the "no free lunch"
riposte would have arisen soon thereafter (since skepticism about
advertising is far from a recent invention). I share that writer's faith
in the cynicism of humanity, myself.
I found nothing that corroborated Mr. Dolph's story ... the imprecision
of "some years ago" make it hard to judge if his purported usage
precedes or follows Heinlein's 1966 novel. I have heard this version
before, but only as a folk tale, not a documented "origin" story, and
I'm skeptical of it.
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