Arnold Zwicky's Blog

A step into greater complexity in my blog posting, after re-entry in two brief postings yesterday: “Zichichi” (here) and “Calvin Tompkins (here): two separate subjects, united by being cleverly stitched together in The Bob newsletters (from writer and cartoonist Bob Eckstein), about the 2026 Winter Olympics on television, with this cartoon from 2/7:

(Toon) The Bob at the Winter Olympics; BE says “The bob is here”, with this tag about the Olympics on tv:

You know it’s good, because it’s free

This is subject 1, the excellent tag, which I would like to apply to this very blog of mine: you know it’s good because it’s free (and I have gone to some trouble to make it so; applaud here for me)

Meanwhile, Toon is BE’s wiener dog race version of the Olympics, in which the racing dogs are in hotdog buns, observed by an array of condiment bottles. On Facebook on 2/8:

BE: “I’m I’m watching the Puppy Bowl. It’s not the same. Gambling has ruined it, even though I’m admittedly part of the problem.

BE’s eccentric Puppy Bowl is subject 2, and it has nothing to do with the the tag.

Wiener dog racing. Subject 2. From Wikipedia:

Dachshund racing, or wiener dog racing, is a sporting event primarily found in North America. Typical dachshund races are either 25 or 50 yards (23 or 46 m) in length, and are run on various surfaces. Many race tracks across America host these events as fundraising or publicity events, and routinely draw the venues’ largest attendance numbers of the year.

The good-because-free tag. Subject 1. On FB I query Bob about the source of the tag:

AZ > BE: Can’t tell if I’ve asked this before — I am having cognitive confusion problems — but do you, Bob, or any readers, know something about the source of the tag “You know it’s good because it’s free”? Which I am very fond of and would like to use with credit.

BE > AZ: I’m afraid I have no memory of the source or if everyone else uses it. I use that since as long as I can remember, myself.

AZ > BE: As I feared. But thanks for the response.

So at the moment, I know nothing about the history of the tag, but am ready to embrace it as my own.

This entry was posted on February 13, 2026 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Formulaic language, Language and animals, Language and sports, Linguistics in the comics, Slogans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.