BS: Great Misquotations

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: gnu
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 05:51 AM

How about mis-speaks (sp ?)....

The fellow meant to say, "Honey, please pass the salt.", but, what he actually said was, "You bitch. You've ruined my life." Talk about a Freudian slip.

The most famous was by JFK. During a speech in Berlin, wanting to show his solidarity with the citizens of Berlin, he meant to say in German, "I am a Berliner.", but, actually said, "I am a jelly doughnut."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 02:54 AM

A lot of the "mistakes" people are pointing out are really folk-processing of materials that have been around for centuries. Case in point, Kendall's 'It's actually "All that GLISTERS is not gold."'

Well, not actually. The first recorded instance of this proverb is in Latin, and the verb was "splendet" or "shines."

The first English version was:

Nis hit nower neh gold al that ter schineth... (it is not all gold that shines)

Chaucer used it with both "Glareth" and "shyneth," and Hills with "gloweth."

"Glisters" doesn't show up until the proverb has been around in English for 400 years. "Glitters" comes in 200 years later, and has been the standard way of speaking this proverb for more than 200 years at this point. Actually, "glitters" has been the standard form for longer than "glisters" was. The only reason some people get stuck on "glisters" is that Shakespeare was so influential, and he quoted the proverb as "glisters."

"All that glitters is not gold" is a perfectly good example of the folk process changing a proverb as the language around it changes. Since "glisters" is not a word people commonly use, it drops out of the proverb tradition. This same reasoning goes for things like chomping at the bit. Do people (or horses) champ on their food? Not anymore. We don't use the verb "to champ" in any other context, so why would we continue to use it in this phrase? Now that the language has changed, so does the idiomatic phrase. To get mad about it makes as much sense as getting mad that we don't say "schineth" anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mark Clark
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 12:29 AM

Good call Murray. Of course the sign over the editor's office door was a play on the common misquotation you correctly cite. It doesn't work quite as well against the correct translation you provided.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Genie
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 09:29 PM

Well, a common mistranslation in song which sort of represents the folk process is in the Christmas carol, "Adeste, Fideles."
The phrase "laete triumphantes" should be translated--and originally WAS translated-- as "joyfully triumphant." (Check out some really old hymnals.) It evolved, of course, to "joyful and triumphant," and is nearly always printed that way today.
Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 07:23 PM

Mark, I hate to have to tell you this, but you have just pepetrated my absolute all-time favorite misquotation.

Yhe inscription above the door to Hades in Dante's "Inferno" read
"lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" which translates as
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

Pedantically

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mark Clark
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 06:06 PM

This may also be a misquotation but hopefully not. <g> I've often heard the story of the famous newspaper editor who, frustrated by the misuse of hopefully, had a sign placed above his door saying “Abandon hopefully all ye who enter here.”

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Deda
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 04:06 PM

Here is the problem with "Hopefully"; it should mean "done in a hopeful way" but it is usually used to mean "it is to be hoped" or "I hope". This is because we have no such word as "hope-ably". So it is correct to say, "She winked at him hopefully", but not "Hopefully the rain will stop soon". However, the Language Experts who decide about these things have pretty much given up on this one; William Safire now accepts it as meaning "one hopes".

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 01:17 PM

Here's another famous misquotation: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian", supposedly uttered by General Sheridan of the US Army.

What actually happened was...Sheridan was at Fort Cobb, receiving some Comanches, who had been persuaded to surrender "unconditionally"...a concept of negotiation that the US Army has remained fond of to this day.

One Comanche leader, Tosawi, wanted to demonstrate good will on meeting the general and introduced himself, saying to Sheridan, "Tosawi, good Indian."

Sheridan eyed him coldly and said, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

Lieutenant Charles Nordstrom was present, and noted the words, and passed them on. In a short time the phrase became shortened to the simpler one we have all heard. It sums up the US policy toward opening up the west in a nutshell.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murph10566
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 09:21 AM

One regular misquote that gets to me:

'CHOMPING at the bit', when the term is "CHAMPING..."

and the annoying "FOYLAGE" when people want to view the beautiful fall FOLIAGE...

I have to admit that I've used 'hopefully' before - please to 'splain: where is the foul with this word ?

M

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 08:41 AM

Answering Genie's question about the origins of God helps those ...:
There is a German proverb (not from the Bible) Hilf dir selbst, so hilft dir Gott i.e. Help yourself, so God will help you.
Another well known misquotation in Germany is from one of Juvenal's odes: mens sana in corpore sano i.e. a sound mind in a sound body. It can often be found in gyms, regularly misunderstood as: If you train your body with sports, you will improve your mind.
In the original there is an utterly different meaning. Juvenal writes about praying and says: "Don't pray for a lot of nonsense, don't make to many words. If you pray, beg at first for a sound mind in a sound body."
You may compare this with Jesus' words: "If you pray ..." introducing the Lord's Prayer.
Special thanks to Wolfgang for correcting the misquotation of Biermann's line about the soldiers.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 07:41 AM

I don't come here regularly so I've just seen the post about Kiplings incomplete quotation (East is East etc). An oppinionated columnist in my local paper called his column "The Sound And The Fury".Did he know the full passage (Shakespeare?) was "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing"

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 04:56 AM

A new try at the sentence with the link:

A correct version of the song is at the other end of the link.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Feb 02 - 04:53 AM

Well, you may never have heard of Germany's most prominent songwriter Wolf Biermann and you may never have heard of his extremely popular antiwar song 'Soldat, Soldat' (Soldier, soldier) which still will be printed in German songbooks in 500 years, but the most often quoted line from this song is the boldest case of obstinate misquotation I know.

The line is 'Soldaten seh'n sich alle gleich' (all soldiers look alike) which is very often quoted as 'Soldaten sind sich alle gleich' (all soldiers are alike) which sound quite similar in German. A correct version of the song is at the other end of the link.

The irony is that Biermann in many interviews has insisted that for him it matters whether the line means 'are alike' or 'look alike'. He often has said explicitely that for him (who has survived Hitler's Germany as a young child but has lost his jewish father murdered in a concentration camp) there was for instance a big difference between Hitler's and the allied soldiers whom he greeted as liberators.

He has said and written that in many interviews, but when he became sixtyfive last year, the two newspaper articles I read about his birthday both quoted this line as the only line from his work and both had it wrong. So that's not just any random line from his work. If you ask a German which Biermann song she knows she'll name this song either first or second. If you ask which line from this song she recollects she'll more often than not quote that particular line and she'll misquote it.

Wolfgang

Link fixed. --JoeClone, 2-Feb-02.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 07:51 PM

What a lovely thread. A pedant's delight! It would be a neat idea to take all these misquotations and put them into a single screenplay...gad! I'm surprised no one in Hollywood has thought to do this yet, especially Mel Brooks.

Now, here's one that is just as glorious as any of them...but it's not a misquotation. It's a real quotation.

"He's dead, Jim."

We have a whole course at the WSSBA based on that very statement, in fact...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Genie
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 07:21 PM

I would second that idea, Murray-- the permathread for lyric (and/or author attribution) corrections. If such a thread is established, I would urge those of us who submit corrections to make it clear what the source of the correction is -- a particular piece of sheet music, a particular recording, etc. Otherwise, folks may end up 'correcting' an accurate lyric because of a different version of the song. (Cf. the thread on "Love Potion Number Nine. There are two different popular recordings of the song, with slightly different lyrics.)

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 04:45 PM

Dick, my opinion, FWIW, is that there is a clear difference between the folk process on one hand and faulty transmission of misheard lyrics (Mondegreens) on the other.

I would agree that the example you quote is an example of the folk process at work. On the other hand, the line in Dougie MacLean's song "Caledonia", given in the DT as
"Travelled far, with coat-tails flying, somewhere in the wind"
is an example of misheard lyrics. A Mondegreen.

And there are, regrettably, many such in the DT. Perhaps if there were a Permathread on correcting lyrics, enough volunteers would be able to extirpate these errors .... I would certainly be willing to help, but I don't know how.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 11:29 AM

Murray MacLeod- You raised an interesting point a while back on this thread. Are you saying that songs with attributable authors are immune from the folk process? I think that one of the neatest arguments against this is in Larry Kaplan's "Song for Gail (Huntington)": Larry wrote "Good times and bad times, they're worth all the telling..." which was immediately transposed to "..all worth he telling.." by about half the singers that did the song. Is one of these "right"?

How do you feel that DigiTrad should handle this kind of thing (especially when the Noble Editor isn't familiar with what was originally written and has to deal with what someone else submitted)? This isn't presented as an excuse for "inaccuracy" but as an honest question. Maybe I should open a new thread on this. Opinions?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: jeffp
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 09:23 AM

I grew up with a 45 rpm version of A Mozart Opera backed with Phonetic Pronunciation and listened to it constantly. I am pretty sure that the first time I heard the fat lady line it was in a sports context and not from Victor Borge. I do, however, remember the famous aria sung by the soprano just before she died - the Die Aria.

jeffp

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 07:19 AM

Micca you may well be right, but a search doesn't bring up any confirmation of Borge as the originator. Love to hear from somebody who owns VB's recordings who could confirm one way or another.

(I thought it was one of Sam Goldwyn's before I searched ....)

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Micca
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 06:56 AM

If memory serves (and with Rampant CRS it seldom does) wasn't the "Its not over till the fat lady sings" one of the Late Great, Victor Borge lines from his monologue about Mozart?(from back in the 60s )
The mother of a friend, used to misquote wonderfully in the manner of Mrs Malaprop on of her more memorable lines being "The sea was as calm as a Mildew" and "a stitch in time shaves nine" ( never did understand that second one)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Genie
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 01:32 AM

Murray, You may be right about the source of the original "fat lady" quote, but I'm pretty sure it was originally "...fat lady finishes singing."

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mark Clark
Date: 31 Jan 02 - 12:37 AM

Murray, Here in the U.S. Burns' line is most often rendered something like: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray” or sometimes “go often astray.” The meaning is the same but somehow the poetry is missing. Even if they get gang aft agley right they're sure to substitute plans for schemes.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 11:56 PM

What is the origin of the quote
"The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings" ?

"Dan Cook, sports broadcaster and writer for the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News, on television newscast in April 1978, after the first basketball playoff game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Washington Bullers, to illustrate that while the Spurs had won once, the series was not over yet."

Murray (cut and pasted from a 'net article)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Genie
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 11:10 PM

"It ain't over till the fat lady sings."

I don't remember who originally made the statement (not Yogi Berra), but the statement, I think, was
"It ain't over until the fat lady finishes singing."

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 10:46 PM

Mark, I am not at all sure that "The Best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley" is frequently misquoted.

For sure, people frequently quote it partially, referring to "the best-laid schemes", or "the best-laid schemes of mice and men" but would you call these misquotations?

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Genie
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 10:34 PM

"...I took the initiative in creating the internet..." Al Gore.
That's what he actually said (sans context).
What is nearly always attributedto him is either a direct quote ("I invented the internet.") or an inaccurate, unwarranted, and misleading paraphrase (Al Gore, the man who claims to have invented the internet).

Note that one meaning of "create" is "to establish," as in an agency, a department, a program, etc. Government officials often "create" such things; no "invention" is implied, at least in the scientific or technological or artistic sense.

Also, to "take the initiative" re X is not the same thing as accomplishing X from start to finish.

This is one of those misqotes (misinterpretations) that probably results more from political motives and/or the desire of the media to entertain (hence, make money) than from the simple "folk process."

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 12:28 PM

"Hell hath no fury like a woman's corns" & while we're at it "Great aches from many acorn grow"
I've seen JC deny he ever said YDR or YDRY but I've seen a film where he says "Why! You rat!", and then punched the hoodlum.
Pete Peterson, I did read the book of film quotes as well as a book on Mae West's film dialogue, I didn't pick up on WCF saying it but they presumably put in all sorts of "in" jokes.
Bill D yesssssssssss now how long have you had this afliction of total belief in ads? When did it start? Is there some toy that you lost in your youth and are still...................
Cairistiona did your councillor make a snap decision to say that?

OK folks I think as we have opened the Pandora's Boxes that are WCF and WSC I will up the bid and give you a Tommy Beacham one. He was asked if he had ever conducted Stockhousen and he replied "No, but I trod in some once" (I fully expect to be corrected on the precision but the joke stands, OK?)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 11:40 AM

well, last night, I SAW an old clip (in an ad, I think?)of Mae West saying "why don't you come up & see me sometime?" It didn't say what the clip was from...but there she was

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Cairistiona
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 11:20 AM

A true story - a local community councillor was at a meeting in his local constituency. He apparently said.. "There have been certain allegations made against me and I hapen to know that these alligators are present here tonight"....

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 10:45 AM

Mr Red-- not completely familiar with the works of Mae West but at the end of My Little Chickadee, FIELDS says to her "come up and see me sometime" and WEST says "my little chickadee". . . close but, as Groucho would say, no cigar.
the Churchill quote, IIRC, is "I have NOTHING to OFFER but blood, toil, tears and sweat." It went into folklore in shortened form partly because there was a book of his collected speeches published w the "blood sweat and tears" title.
and the reward was 25 pounds, offered when he escaped from the Boers. (WSC claimed that a copy of the reward poster was what broke the ice between him and Michael Collins at the peace conference over partition. Went something like
Collins "You put a price on my head"
Churchill (gets poster)" Well, at least it was a good price. This is all they though I was worth at the time."

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mark Clark
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 10:27 AM

In his poem “To A Mouse” Robert Burns wrote:

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy !

Quotations of this famous line gang agley more aft than perhaps any other quotation. One almost never encounters this one quoted correctly.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Snuffy
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 09:36 AM

Where there's ice and there's snow
And the tunafishes blow?

WassaiL!

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 09:14 AM

Zipster: Only if you've got an irony license. See Spaw for details. Also, you can be fined for being ironic in a no-irony zone.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Zipster
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 09:06 AM

Tunafish is so it's not confused with a tuna. Just like catfish

(You'll have to let me know if irony works in the forum)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: John Gray
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 08:51 AM

Me, at the alter, "I do". ( twice damnit ! )

JG / FME

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 08:39 AM

Genie,

Isn't the Churchill quote "I can offer you nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat..."

Lyndi-Loo

..."Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" (often misquoted as "a woman's scorn".... I seem to remember this quote as:

"Earth knows no like Love to Hatred turned,
Nor Hell no fury like a woman spurned."

I get annoyed by people quoting "East is East and West is Weest and never the twain shall meet" and using it to justify prejudice (by ignoring the rest of the verse)

OH, EAST is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 02:33 AM

The wedding ceremony in the Book of Common Prayer contains the words "till death us do part" and not, as it is often misquoted, "till death do us part".

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 12:55 AM

Can't really call it a 'quote' but I don't understand why people say 'tunafish'. Is there such a thing as 'tunabeef'? Or 'tunapork'? Isn't there a certain fish that is a tuna?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Genie
Date: 30 Jan 02 - 12:31 AM

Not exactly worthy of Bartlett's quotations, but figure skater Nancy Kerrigan's wail after being clubbed by Sean Eckhart's and Jeff Gilooley's buddy what's-his-face was "Why?? Why??"
The fact that the press repeatedly misquoted it as "Why me?"--even putting her picture on the cover of Newsweek or Time with that caption--was one example of what makes me distrust what I read in the papers or see on TV! When there's a widely disseminated videotape of the thing they're quoting and they still can't get it right...


Murray,
The New International Version of the Bible has I Timothy 6:10 as "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. [italics added]
I believe the King James differs only in using "...the root..." instead of "...a root... ."

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: kendall
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 10:11 PM

Under and beneath are not the same thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: rea
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 08:54 PM

Well, poseur college girls seem to think that the INdigo Girls wrote a song called "Closer to _Find_" (ergh!)

and of course, the hamlet quote, which drives me nuts.

-rea

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 08:37 PM

Underneath is redundant ? Not always. Maybe when used as a preposition, not when used as an adverb.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: GUEST,colwyn dane
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 08:29 PM

Another piece from 'Casanblanca':

H.B. "I came to Casablanca for the waters."
C.R. "But we're in the middle of the desert!"
H.B. "I was misinformed."

"You dirty rat" was attributed to J.Cagney but during a TV interview he denied having said it.

Drifting off thread here but still in the dream factory this time movie publicity .

"Don't pronounce it - see it!" for 'Ninotchka'

"The thousands who have read the book will know why WE WILL NOT SELL
ANY CHILDREN TICKETS to see this picture!" for 'Grapes of Wrath'

"£10,000 if you die of fright!" for 'Macabre'

CD.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: kendall
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 08:14 PM

Why do so many people say Exit, and replace the x with a g? EGGZIT? And Luxury, Luggsury? GeneOlogy? it's genealogy. Verbal agreement? all agreements are verbal. Oral is more proper. Underneath is redundant. and "All of a sudden" think about it, sounds silly when you examine it. What's wrong with a simple "Suddenly"?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 01:03 PM

What was his middle name? (no I don't know but I just wanted "une petit pleasantrie")

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 12:36 PM

Oh no you're not ....

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 12:35 PM

I see I am going to have to tell you..........

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 12:35 PM

Dooley Wilson

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 12:00 PM

And.........
for your 10 bonus points (fingers on the buzzer)
who played it again ?
not Sam the character, the actual singer........
(lets see how long it takes - 5 minutes I reckon)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Misquotations
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jan 02 - 11:56 AM

No I don't want no steenkin bahajees **bg**

Mae West never said "Come up and see me sometime" well not in a film, she said "Come up and see me one time" & "Come up and see me big boy".
However, I saw an interview with her on the docks and she had just arrived(maybe in Southhampton). She said it to the reporter but perhaps it was expected of her by then. I don't think the reporter got his come-uppance!

as I segue neatly into yet more seafaring
"Water water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink."

Clock this one. She said "Play it Sam, once more for old time's sake". She also said something before that about playing the song but my memory fades "As time goes by"................