When life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonade

• Clichés
• 1 Comment on When life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonade
• Posted on 14 July, 2011
• by Katie Schwartz

According to Etymology.com, When life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonade: “the phrase Dale Carnegie popularized the cliché, but I found it in print five years prior to Carnegie’s first publication. This is from a sidebar of maxims in a men’s clothing advertising periodical called Men’s Wear, 1908/09”

Still. I’m none the wiser about why lemons were stigmatized. What was considered a ‘life’ lemon? Foreclosure? Disease? Getting fired? Peeing on a stoop and getting caught? Relationships gone sour?

This cliché is stupid.

1. If life throws me shit, I’m not going to turn it into shitorade
2. Why is a recently bought, bad car called a lemon?
3. Where’s the lemon pride, yo?