The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent Was a Summer in San Francisco. Locale: San Francisco, California? Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Originator: Mark Twain? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Living in Menlo Park near San Francisco I have heard the following witticism credited to Mark Twain many times: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco. I actually enjoy the weather here, so this saying always seemed implausible to me. Also, the San Francisco Chronicle once printed an article that cast doubt on the Twain attribution. Can you figure out who created this joke? Also, was the remark originally about SF or some other locale? Quote Investigator: There is no evidence in the papers and speeches of Mark Twain that he ever made this remark about San Francisco. There is a letter discussed below from Twain in which he commented on a similar type of jest, but he expressed unhappiness with the weather of Paris and not San Francisco. Top- flight researcher Stephen Goranson located the earliest known evidence of this joke- type in a letter written by Horace Walpole, a prominent literary figure and politician in England. Walpole attributed the remark to James Quin, a leading actor in London in the 1. This jest is distinct but it is closely related to the quip given by the questioner.
Adopted as 'prisoner of conscience' by Amnesty International, Mr. Birdal was jailed for telling the truth, after Turkish right wing officials tried to kill him. The first and most comprehensive medical reference tool for natural medicine and integrative healthcare. Creative Being Personified. Comanducci, Dizionario illustrato dei Pittori. The location of the cold weather was not specified. The letter was written during the summer of 1. July . The text of the letter is viewable at the authoritative Mark Twain Project Online . Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the Damnable. More than a hundred years ago somebody asked Quin, “Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?” “Yes,” said he, “Last summer.” I judge he spent his summer in Paris. Several fine researchers have noted the existence of this letter linking Twain to the quip about cold weather including Ralph Keyes . Instead, the joke was directed at a genuinely frosty locale: Duluth, Minnesota. The Duluth News- Tribune in 1. The truth will come out in time. The above instance in 1. In June 1. 90. 1 in a Kentucky newspaper an employee of the weather bureau deployed a version of the saying that closely matched a modern template. Once again the weather in Duluth was the subject . Grant, of the State College Weather Bureau, a Herald reporter learned that the life of the employes of the United States Weather Bureau service is one filled with interesting experiences. Grant was sent to Pike’s Peak, where he established the station now there. Another assignment was to Duluth, Minn., where he learned to appreciate rapid changes in temperature. He says the coldest winter he ever experienced was the summer he spent in Duluth. Over a span of more than one hundred years many locations were substituted into this jest including: Milwaukee, Two Harbors, Grand Marais, Puget Sound, Buffalo, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. Note that Mark Twain lived until 1. Yet, the words were not attributed to him in any of the early instances. The first citation found by QI in which Twain’s name was invoked was dated 1. Duluth. The details are recorded further below. Here are additional selected citations in chronological order. James Quin, a popular actor and wit, lived from 1. The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance . A book titled “The Life of Mr. James Quin, Comedian” was released during the year of his death, but the bon mot about the weather was not included in this initial publication. A revised enlarged edition published much later in 1. In 1. 84. 0 the six volume collection titled “The Letters of Horace Walpole” was published, and it contained a missive from Walpole dated 1. Quin. The details were given previously in this article . Multiple editions of Horace Walpole’s letters were printed over the decades and this helped to disseminate the joke. In 1. 88. 0 Mark Twain wrote a letter that contained a mention of the jest credited to James Quin. Twain formulated a statement that referred to the weather of Paris as noted previously in this article . Twain’s expression differed appreciably from the modern saying about the weather in San Francisco often ascribed to him. Yet these words are the closest known match from his pen to the modern adage. In 1. 88. 2 a version of the comical dialog was printed in Littell’s Living Age magazine. The article author, Tom Balbus, gave no attribution . James Quin, Comedian” was published with a supplement that included a version of the witticism credited to Quin. In this instance the roles of summer and winter were reversed, but the hinge of the joke was preserved because a very cold summer was equated to winter . The author discussed the “fons et origo” (Latin for source and origin) of the joke. It was compared to other sayings used by the essayist Charles Lamb and the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron . In one of his Letters, Charles Lamb quotes, as a good saying of Coleridge, the joke, “That summer has set in with its usual severity.” The curious point is that Byron had made the same facetious remark just before; but Lamb and he belonged to different sets. It matters little, however, for Walpole had anticipated them both; and the present mot appears to be the Joseph Miller query, “When did you ever see such a winter?” To which a wag retorts, “Last summer.”The term “Joseph Miller” in the passage above referred to a famous collection of humor called “Joe Miller’s Joke Book” or “Joe Miller’s Jests”. This work was printed in a variety of editions for many years and was a well- known repository of time- worn levity. Also in 1. 89. 0 an edition of Horace Walpole’s Letters was reviewed in the monthly Temple Bar. As noted previously the letters were republished several times over a long period. The reviewer was impressed by the quip about weather and repeated it for his readers . This is the earliest instance known to QI; however, the remark is labeled a “mouldy chestnut” therefore earlier examples probably exist . Grant making the remark about the climate of Duluth . This will be sure to revive the yarn about the Irishman who asserted that the coldest winter he ever remembered was the summer he spent in Duluth. In 1. 90. 2 an anecdote told by a Senator from Minnesota featured the jest which was attributed to a stereotypical Irishman. The spelling used for some words below is based on the original text and was meant to reflect an Irish brogue . Nelson proceeded to tell in his Swedish English an Irish dialect story. He stated that “the coldest winter he ever experienced was one summer he lived in Milwaukee.”By 1. Two Harbors, Minnesota as noted in a letter to the “The Boilermakers’ and Iron Ship Builders’ Journal” . A Professor of Horticulture published a research paper about growing fruit in Minnesota and included the following passage . I knew Mark Twain’s story that the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in Duluth. But I soon learned that these stories were delightful exaggerations and that fruit was being grown largely as a home orchard development, but in a commercial way as well. In 1. 96. 3 a psychology textbook included a version of the joke about San Francisco that was attributed to Twain . Such observations can have special significance only for persons who have lived in and have attitudes about the northern California city. In 2. 00. 5 an article in the San Francisco Chronicle stated that the ascription to Twain was apocryphal . The primal version of the joke was attributed to the actor James Quin (who died in 1. Since Quin was based in Ireland and England he may have been referring to the weather in one of these two countries. Mark Twain learned of this witticism and used it in a letter he wrote in 1. He credited James Quin, and he tailored the jest to Paris weather. The joke was reformulated into the current- day phrasing by 1. Evidence indicates that initially this novel version of the quip was used to comment on the weather of Duluth, Minnesota. The creator of this new jest was anonymous in the earliest citations. As the joke evolved it was applied to a variety of locales including Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Two Harbors, Minnesota. Mark Twain died in 1. He was attached to the quotation about the weather in Duluth by 1. By 1. 96. 3 the locale was switched to San Francisco, and Mark Twain was again attached to the quote. QI suggests that these two attributions are probably spurious, and it is likely that Twain never used the current- day phrasing to make a remark about any city.(Many thanks to ADS mailing list participants for help and encouragement.). Shapiro, Section Mark Twain, Page 7. Yale University Press, New Haven.(Verified on paper). James Quin, Comedian, With the History of the Stage From His Commencing Actor to His Retreat to Bath, To Which Is Added A Supplement of Original Facts and Anecdotes, Page 1. Reader, London. Carew Hazlitt, Page 1. Elliot Stock, London. Fraser Rae, Start Page 1. Quote Page 1. 94, Richard Bentley & Son, Printed by William Clowes and Sons, London. Publishing Co., Kansas City, Missouri. Brierley, Start Page 4. Quote page 4. 6, Michigan Horticultural Society, Printed by Franklin De. Kleine Co., Lansing, Michigan. Young Library of the University of Kentucky in Lexington; Great thanks to the librarian at UK.). Jeffery Auer, and John V. Irwin, Page 1. 39, Appleton- Century- Crofts Division of Meredith Publishing Company, New York.
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