The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and WhenSt. Martin's Publishing Group, 2007 M04 1 - 416 pages Our language is full of hundreds of quotations that are often cited but seldom confirmed. Ralph Keyes's The Quote Verifier considers not only classic misquotes such as "Nice guys finish last," and "Play it again, Sam," but more surprising ones such as "Ain't I a woman?" and "Golf is a good walk spoiled," as well as the origins of popular sayings such as "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," "No one washes a rented car," and "Make my day." |
From inside the book
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... Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life Sons on Fathers: A Book of Men's Writing Timelock: How Life Got So Hectic and What You Can Do About It We, the ...
... phrases indicating that a thought is secondhand (“in the old saying,” “it's been said that,” “as a poet once observed,” etc.). In other cases quotations can be scrutinized much as an authenticator examines documents for evidence of ...
... phrase, or quotation is known to have appeared in print. For example, although the origins of the catchphrase “the whole nine yards” have long confounded language detectives, its earliest known appearance in print is in an 1855 account ...
... common use long before Louis XV or anyone else was alleged to have said it. Verdict: An old proverb put in many mouths, especially that of Louis XV. “AIN'T I a woman?” This is the phrase ex-slave Sojourner 2 RALPH KEYES.
... phrase ex-slave Sojourner Truth used to bring an 1851 convention of feminists to its feet. Or so we like to imagine. Contemporary news accounts of her talk reported no such exclamation. After exhaustive research, biographer Carleton ...