Mudcat Café Message

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User Name	Thread Name	Subject	Posted
GerryM	Folklore: modern proverb (114* d)	RE: Folklore: modern proverb	10 Oct 20
It's not clear to me how recent a proverb has to be to be considered "modern" for this thread. One of the ones Joe F gave a couple of posts upthread, "Better to shut your mouth and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt," goes back over a century. Quote Investigator studies it, and concludes, "The earliest known appearance of the adage discovered by QI occurred in a book titled “Mrs. Goose, Her Book” by Maurice Switzer. The publication date was 1907 and the copyright notice was 1906. The book was primarily filled with clever nonsense verse, and the phrasing in this early version was slightly different: "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it."

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