Release date is 2026-05-05

Richard Tonsing, Tim Miller, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)

Say it with bricks/Say it with oil by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Ring Lardner is a pair of humorous essays written in the early 20th century. The book is a witty, conversational exchange about marriage, poking fun at the everyday flaws of husbands and wives. Its likely topic is the comic battle of the sexes and the practical compromises that keep couples together.

The first half features a woman’s lively monologue about husbands, with “George” as her prime exhibit: his dilatory dress habits, noisy toothbrushing, recycled jokes, and car-fussing delays, balanced by acknowledgments of his comforts—company at night, a sense of safety, and occasional loyalty. She riffs on mothers-in-law, household grind, missed anniversaries, and the small negotiations that define domestic life, ending with a candid admission that for all its irritations, marriage is still what she wants. The second half answers from a man’s point of view, claiming the world stacks the deck in favor of wives and then rattling off dry, affectionate barbs about their timekeeping, telephone zeal, ballgame boredom, and social one‑upmanship, before closing with a puckish, half-sincere nod to the freedoms of bachelor days. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: New York: George H. Doran Company, 1923