TANSTAAFL (was: Re: contributing to FSF)

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

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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