The best Dear Abby answer. Ever.

[kpete]

FRI JAN 18, 2013 AT 12:16 AM PST
The best Dear Abby answer. Ever.
byFiddler On A Hot Tin Roof

Offered without further comment:

Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours — blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. … This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? — Nob Hill Residents

Dear Residents: You could move.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/18/1179980/-The-best-Dear-Abby-answer-Ever

[Stuart G]

1. great answer...............nt...k and r..

[NoMoreWarNow]

2. Sure it wasn't the "snob hill" neighborhood?

[unapatriciated]

3. Love it

Thanks for the morning chuckle.

[efhmc]

4. Already saw this twice on DU yesterday.

[wryter2000]

5. Wow

Awesome!

[skypilot]

6. "suspicious mixture of company"????

Because diversity is SO suspicious.

Where the hell is this person from that this would even faze them in San Francisco of all places.

[question everything]

7. Another good one

In 1970, she published a reader's letter asking whether homosexuality was a disease—as the American Psychological Association said at the time. "It is the inability to love at all which I consider an emotional illness," she replied.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324468104578247943685507534.html

[BlancheSplanchnik]

23. wow, that's cool!!!

ahead of her time!!



(I've known plenty who couldn't love at all. Yeah, they were sick alright!)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Thanks.

I've loved that one for years. I was hoping that was going to be chosen as the best answer ever.

[samsingh]

9. kick

[kentuck]

10. Tribute from John John Prine

[oberliner]

11. Except it's fake

Here's another version:

Dear Abby: About four months ago, the house across the street was sold to a "father and son" — or so we thought. We later learned it was an older man about 50 and a young fellow about 24.This was a respectable neighborhood before this "odd couple" moved in. They have all sorts of strange-looking company. Men who look like women, women who look like men, blacks, whites, Indians. Yesterday I even saw two nuns go in there!... Abby, these weirdos are wrecking our property values! How can we improve the quality of this once-respectable neighborhood? —Up In Arms
Dear UP: You could move.

http://news.yahoo.com/13-dear-abbys-best-zingers-115100506.html

[FreeState]

13. its real - its in her book

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/dear-abbys-legacy-wit-warmth-and-snappy-advice_67799628

"You could move," Dear Abby replied.

That zinger, contained in the 1981 collection "The Best of Dear Abby," was such classic Abby — real name, Pauline Friedman Phillips — that it moved her daughter to burst into laughter Thursday when reminded of it, even though she had just returned from the funeral of her mother. The elder Phillips had died a day earlier at age 94 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

"People weren't really talking about homosexuality back then," Jeanne Phillips, who now writes the famous syndicated column, said. "But you know, there wasn't a subject my mother wouldn't take on."

[oberliner]

15. Then why is the text different?

I've seen about a half dozen different version of this online - all with different text, and signed with a different moniker.

Doesn't that suggest that the letter isn't real? At least not as posted on Daily Kos. Perhaps the spirit is accurate, but not verbatim.

[csziggy]

14. It was quoted in her obituary

So even if it wasn't real, Pauline Phillips' family embraced the sentiment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/business/media/pauline-phillips-flinty-adviser-to-millions-as-dear-abby-dies-at-94.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
(The letter is quoted at the very end.)

[oberliner]

16. I do think the sentiment is true

I am just saying that this particular version is fake, in terms of the wording and the "Nob Hill" reference - which contradicts other, earlier iterations of same.

[csziggy]

18. The version in the Daily Kos is the version in the obit

I think I would accept that version as true over some other source.

ETA - The source linked above with the 'different text' is a paraphrasing of the letter, not a direct quote, btw. That could explain the difference.

[oberliner]

19. I found the original newspaper clipping

Herald Journal, May 22, 1981.

Looks to be the same as the Daily Kos (with one paragraph elided out)

Thanks for helping me sort out the discrepancies!

[csziggy]

21. Thanks!

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. Was the man's name Frank N Furter?

[LibertyLover]

17. I have to confess that I prefer another one of her bon mots -

I have to paraphrase the letter, but it went something along the lines of "Dear Abby, what is the cure for a man who hasn't been faithful to his wife during their 40 years or marriage?" Abby's reply (and this is not paraphrased): "Rigor mortis."

[ConservativeDemocrat]

20. This is the origin...

...of white-flight.

So the "Residents" do buy up valuable farmland and pave it over with pure white-only-in-everything-but-name gated communities, where they surround themselves in a little bubble of flag-pins, talk radio, and FOX. And due to the inherent bias toward rural and suburban spaces built into our system (by our founding fathers specifically to prevent national politics becoming a mere extension of big-city politics), they have disproportionate electoral influence.

A much less snarky, and better, reply would have been:

Dear Residents: Before you condemn them, why don't you meet them? If you're religious, recognize that they are children of God, just as you are. Different does not mean evil.


We need less hatred in this country, and it's very hard to hate people you've actually met. And by the way, this goes both ways, my dear hyper-partisan friends.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[BlancheSplanchnik]

24. well, now that the position is open....

[libodem]

22. OMG

That is stupendous!!!

[Robb]

25. Through the magic of Google News Archive, the original:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1906&dat=19810522&id=us8fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BdkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4734,1381118

[Curmudgeoness]

26. Thanks, I needed a good laugh!

[AverageJoe90]

27. We'll miss you, Abby.....

You inspired millions with your editorials. There may never be another quite like you.....you were a true American icon.

Rest In Peace.