Ye may take a boy out of the country (was: I apologize in ad

[Paul Mackin]

The  words that stick in my mind are, you can take the boy out of the country,
but you can not take the country out of the boy, which is the way the Salem people
must have heard it too. Sounds a lot like Will Rogers but of course anything
that late should have been easy to source. Do the reference books give dates? 
Can't help thinking of the antithetical how you gonna keep 'em
down on the farm, after they've seen Paree? 

							P.

 
Henry writes:
On 25 Sep 97 at 12:24, Peter Giordano <Peter.Giordano at williams.edu> 
wrote:

> According to  A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS this is a common
> proverb with many variations (what a surprise) The region given is
> the whole of the US and Canada (and the book is usually more
> precise) - It does not give an attribution - It does not appear in
> any of a half dozen books on English Proverbs I checked so my guess
> is that it is American
> 
> >>     250.27 - 250.28  "Ye may take a boy out of the Country...but never the
> >>     Country out of the Boy."  Can this proverb be attributed to anyone?
> >>     (I've looked, but can't  find a source.)
> 

Thanks for the research, Peter. Most of us who grew up with cigarette 
ads on the tv would think of Salem as a reflex. In fact, the reflex 
was so strong that after years of "You can take Salem out of the 
country, but you can't take the country out of Salem," they came out 
with an ad that sang "You can take Salem out of the country, but..." 
and then, bing, rang a bell. Always been one of my favorites, next to 
using the theme from The Magnifcent Seven for Marlboro ads. What a 
cultural loss....