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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... quip must have been Twain's concoction, or Wilde's, or Shaw's, or Dorothy Parker's. “Everything I've ever said will be attributed to Dorothy Parker,” playwright George S. Kaufman once moaned. Parker herself disavowed authorship of most ...
... quip invariably works better when put in the mouth of someone whose very name inspires a grin. Introducing a knee-slapper as something said by Leno, Chappelle, or Letterman starts our smile even before we hear the punch line. As a ...
... quip of American octogenarian Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., French Premier Georges Clemenceau, or Prussian Field Marshal Friedrich von Wrangel. Misattribution works best if the person quoted is not around to correct the record. Famous ...
... quip originated with political scientist Wallace Sayre, Neustadt's onetime colleague at Columbia University. A 1973 book gave as “Sayre's Law,” “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the ...
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