The Mad Menagerie Manager

September 21, 2008 2:19 PM

"The Mad Menagerie Manager imagined that he managed an Imaginary Menagerie"--who wrote this?

Apocryphal, or is there a source? I am a child of the seventies and was taught this one in elementary school. Now I am in a postition to foist it upon young others. Where did it come from?

posted by emhutchinson to writing & language (2 comments total)

Probably not the original source, but it's used as an example on p. 119 of The Improvement of Sight by Natural Methods, by Cecil Stanley Price (Sherwood Press, 1940) in the form "The menagerie manager imagined that he managed the imaginary menagerie."
posted by languagehat at 2:59 PM on September 21

It's also in How to be a Convincing Talker and a Charming Conversationalist By Justus George Frederick (1937)
posted by blue_beetle at 3:23 PM on September 21