Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
Who told it first?
Disputed
Anthony Oettinger (Harvard), 1966-09
Where: Scientific American, September 1966 (earliest known publication of the two phrases)
Quote Investigator found no evidence that Groucho Marx used it; he was credited with it by 1989. The two phrases were used by Oettinger and Susumu Kuno's machine-translation group at Harvard (a November 1963 Harvard Alumni Bulletin report describes that work). The sentences were not placed next to each other in the 1966 article. "Time flies like an arrow" alone is a much older phrase.
Older versions, rival claims and what came next
- 1963-11 older relative Harvard Alumni Bulletin - Report on Oettinger and Kuno's machine-translation work, showing that machines struggle with ambiguous sentences. source
- 1966-09 documented Anthony Oettinger, Scientific American - Earliest known publication of the two phrases. source
- 1989 claim Groucho Marx (credited) - The first credit to Groucho found; he died in 1977. source
Sources
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