RE: freebies

From: Alun Jones [MS MVP] (alun_at_texis.com)
Date: 11/03/03 

Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 17:22:18 GMT

In article <MPG.1a049ec9ebd858b7989898@msnews.microsoft.com>, 2003MS20.spam@aosake.net wrote:
>In article <021e01c39b45$1cb07180$a601280a@phx.gbl>,
>anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com says...
>> There is no such thing as a free lunch!
>> Quote from my grandfather.
>
>He must have been fond of Robert Anson Heinlein's book, "The Moon is a Harsh
>Mistress"!

You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it ... oh,
wait, wrong cross-reference.

Try http://www.jstor.org/news/2000.11/words.link.html - attributing the
published use of the phrase to reference to an economist's "famous TINSTAAFL
formula" about fourteen years before Heinlein's book was published. The
quote is usually assigned to Milton Friedman, another economist, so the
phrase had apparently been doing the rounds in economical circles from 1952
to 1975, when Friedman's book was published.

Often, authors will use a phrase in print that has been circulating by word
of mouth for centuries. This does not mean that they invented it, nor that
the person saying it owes anything to the author who first made it popular
in print.

Alun.
~~~~

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