For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn is a quote popularly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, and it is said he wrote it in a bet among fellow writers to create a sad story using only six words. The story seems to imply a couple is selling baby shoes they never gave to their child due to a tragedy such as a miscarriage. While the legitimacy of the story is debated among historians, the catchphrase itself became highly recognizable and has long been parodied, perhaps for over a century. Online, these parodies could make the phrase a point of comparison between image captions that seem to tell sad stories or tweak the phrase itself to alter the implied meaning.