First off, the batch import of which this is a part was from my quotes file. Second, Brian Postow is a FOAF of mine from UMD. (Did you meet my friend Steph at some point? She is the mutual friend and is quoted in his quotes file as well as my own.) Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I picked up that quote from someone's Usenet sig some time between 1992 and 1994. A search of Google Groups seems to indicate that one Paul Foxworthy used it as a sig quote during that time. That's as far back as I can trace it. You'd have to ask him where he got it.

Oooh, interesting. I hadn't thought to separately check Google Groups. It appears that Paul is a Wikipedian, so I dropped him a line over there; we'll see if he responds, I guess.

Catfish is funnier in the line, although I would normally think that fruit bat is the funnier of the two animals.

See, fruit bat is funnier to me. Dunno why. :-)

Incidentally, Paul Foxworthy eventually responded to my note on Wikipedia, and apparently the saying is not original to him, either, speculating that it perhaps just came from a "thoughts for the day" program. So, who knows? But if anyone wonders about the origins of the phrase, they'll at least find their way to this post. And if anyone *knows* more about said origins, they're welcome to post here. :)

I continue to love the internet. Today I got an email from Brian Postow (who is mentioned in the body of the post), who is pretty sure he initiated the line while at college in the early 90s. He adds,

Originally, it WAS after catfish, however, I changed it because of another joke: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light-bulb? Fish. The upshot was that "fish" could never be a non-sequitur because of that joke. Thus, I changed it to fruitbat.

I still think catfish is funnier. :) But hey! Mystery solved!

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