Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

of Accounting” (1936)

One doesn’t typically think of Frost’s poetry as witty and whimsical, but if someone ever exclaims, “Where has all the money gone?” you could do a lot worse than quoting this little verse in your defense. The poem first appeared in his 1936 book A Further Range. Another famous poet with a sense of humor was T. S. Eliot. He once said:

Never commit yourself to a cheese without having first examined it.

Never eat anything that comes when you call.BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT

Never read by candlelight anything smaller than the ace of clubs.SIR HENRY HALFORD

Never take an old guy to a place like Hooters.CATHY HAMILTON, in Over-the-Hillisms:

What They Say & What They Really Mean (2004)

Hamilton explained: “After one beer, old guys tend to ignore their inner censors and actually verbalize out loud the thoughts going through their heads.” So, what exactly is an old guy likely to say? According to Hamilton, things like “Va-va-va-voom!”

Never start a project until you’ve picked out someone to blame.

JOHNNY HART & BRENT PARKER,

a caption from The Wizard of Id comic strip

Humorists are famous for taking serious advice—like never blame someone else for a mistake—and turning it on its head. Yes, feel free to blame people, this one suggests—but make sure you identify a scapegoat before you actually start working on a project.

Never try to outstubborn a cat.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, in Time Enough for Love (1973)

Never get married while you’re going to college;

it’s hard to get a start if a prospective employer

finds you’ve already made one mistake.

FRANK MCKINNEY “KIN” HUBBARD

Never go to restaurants named after days of the week.

ALAN KING

King added: “If I have to say to someone, ‘Should we meet Tuesday at Friday’s? Or should it be Friday at Tuesday’s?’ I feel like I’m part of an Abbott and Costello routine.”

Never look on the bright side; the glare is blinding.

FLORENCE KING

Never relinquish clothing to a hotel valet

without first specifically telling him that you want it back.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

Never brag about your ancestors coming over on the Mayflower;

the immigration laws weren’t so strict in those days.

LEW LEHR

Never buy expensive thong underwear.

One trip through the dryer and it’s a frilly bookmark.CAROL LEIFER, in When You Lie About

Your Age, the Terrorists Win (2009)

This comes from a section titled “40 Things I Know at 50 (Because 50 is the New 40).” Leifer also learned some other interesting things over the years:

Never eat at a restaurant that charges for bread.

Never eat pistachio nuts after getting a French manicure.

Never wear high heels to an event

if you’re going to be outside on a lawn.

Never take your shoes off on a plane.

Please find other ways to show your “relaxed side.”

Never buy Sweet’N low, Equal, or Splenda at the supermarket.

That’s what restaurants are for.

Never eat anything whose listed ingredients

cover more than one-third of the package.JOSEPH LEONARD, from a 1986 Herb Caen

column in the San Francisco Chronicle

Never darken my Dior again!BEATRICE LILLIE, to a waiter who spilled soup on her dress,

in her 1972 autobiography Every Other Inch a Lady

Lillie was a popular stage and screen actress on both sides of the Atlantic in the first half of the twentieth century. Here she cleverly alters never darken my door again, a centuries-old English saying that means to show up unwanted at a place one has been thrown out of. In nineteenth-century theater, the phrase would typically be delivered by an angry parent expelling an intransigent child from the family home (the darken portion of the saying refers to a person’s shadow appearing on the threshold). Nigel Rees dates the saying to at least 1692 in England. It soon became common enough in colonial America that Ben Franklin used it in The Busybody, a 1729 series of essays. By the twentieth century, the expression would never be used seriously, and in the 1933 film Duck Soup, Groucho Marx put it this way: “Go, and never darken my towels again!”

Never call an accountant a credit to his profession;

a good accountant is a debit to his profession.CHARLES J. C. LYALL

Never subscribe to anything that smells better than it reads.DOUG MARLETTE

I found this a number of years ago in a Kudzu cartoon. It appeared around the time that magazines first began inserting scratch ’n sniff ads for perfumes and fragrances.

I actually learned about sex watching neighborhood dogs.

And it was good. Go ahead and laugh.

I think the most important thing I learned was:

Never let go of the girl’s leg, no matter how hard she tries to shake you off.STEVE MARTIN

Never eat more than you can lift.MISS PIGGY (Jim Henson)

Miss Piggy (formally named Miss Pigathius “Piggy” Lee) was originally viewed by creator Jim Henson as a minor supporting character when he began The Muppet Show in 1975. She eventually became one of the show’s most popular figures and a cultural icon, famous for a diva personality that swung wildly from saccharinely charming when she wanted something to violent rages when her desires were frustrated. She also occasionally tossed out hilarious one-liners, as in the previous dieting tip. She also offered this advice about buying cosmetics: “Never purchase beauty products in a hardware store.”

Never call a man a fool; borrow from him.ADDISON MIZNER

Never raise your hand to your children;

it leaves your midsection unprotected.ROBERT ORBEN

This line is often attributed to comedian Red Buttons, but it was originally authored by Orben. In 1946, at age eighteen, Orben wrote Encyclopedia of Patter, the first of his many joke books (he also published a comedy newsletter for three decades). In the 1950s and ’60s, he was America’s most famous gag writer, doing stints with Dick Gregory, Jack Paar, and Red Skelton. Orben was such a comedic staple in the 1960s that Lenny Bruce said his routines were different from mainstream comics in part because they contained “no Orben jokes.” As a speechwriter for President Gerald Ford, Orben was almost certainly the man who authored Ford’s famous “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln” line.

Never ask old people how they are

if you have anything else to do that day.JOE RESTIVO

Never start offshore oil exploration unless you know the drill.DENNIS RIDLEY, offered shortly after the BP

oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010

Never buy a fur from a veterinarian.JOAN RIVERS

Rivers has also been quoted as offering these additional thoughts:

Never floss with a stranger.

Never let a panty line show around your ankle.

Never play peek-a-boo with a child on a long plane trip.

There’s no end to the game.RITA RUDNER

This came from a Rudner sketch that ended this way: “Finally I grabbed him by the bib and said, ‘Look, it’s always gonna be me!’ ”

Never jog while wearing wingtips—

unless you are attending the Nerd Convention in Atlantic City.MARK RUSSELL

Never do anything you wouldn’t want to explain to the paramedic.SHANNON RYAN

Never look at the trombones; it only encourages them.RICHARD STRAUSS, one of his ten rules for young composers

Never look down on short people.GREG TAMBLYN

Never answer a telephone that rings before breakfast.JAMES THURBER, in Lanterns & Lances (1961)

Thurber added: “It is sure to be one of three types of persons: a strange man in Minneapolis who has been up all night and is phoning collect; a salesman who wants to come over and demonstrate a combination Dictaphone and music box that also cleans rugs; or a woman out of one’s past.”