Vive la difference

Posted by R. Berg on August 13, 2001

In Reply to: Vive la difference posted by Bob on August 12, 2001

: : I am looking for the origin of the phrase "Vive la Difference"

: : Hopefully, someone can help me with this... specifically, I am interested in who said it.

: Spencer Tracy's character, Adam Bonner, in "Adam's Rib," 1949.

Who said it first may be impossible to determine. Eric Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases: American and British, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day, says it's been a catchphrase since 1919 or 1920 and calls it "an adaptation . . . of the French male toast."