CSotD: “Iago,” I murmured
Skip to comments
Pardon My Planet with a two-fer — a funny gag that raises a less hilarious question of whether our standards for truth have slipped or our ease-of-access-without-gatekeepers simply become moreso?
The immediate booze gag reminds me of a line of Hallmark cards from back in the days of hipster humor. I had a book of those jokes which is now at my son's house because I am attempting to raise another generation of thoughtful wiseasses and he has three children while my other son only has two. I'm playing the odds.
I don't have to go on about this, however, because it turns out the estimable Mike Lynch (I'd guess about 6'1") has already done a fine job over at his blog. And it answers the question of when I got the book, which is, when I was 12. Perfect timing.
The other is the increasingly slippery nature of truth. As Abraham Lincoln noted, "Most of the quotes you see on the Internet are bogus."
I stole that and probably changed it in the process, but that's okay. It doesn't matter if it's a fact or not. The important thing is that expresses something meaningful and deep.
For instance, the notion that nobody cares whether something is a fact or not as long as it seems righteous.
They'll obsess over the meat that is more or less extruded from places a butcher's knife can't reach, mostly because people have named it "pink slime," and have thereby opened the floodgates to everyone being horribly upset that it's used in various fast-food places and cafeterias.
Apparently, the now-outraged had previously been under the impression that McNuggets were a health food, that Whoppers are good for you and that most animals in the food chain are processed in facilities much like the "clean rooms" where they make computer processors.
And isn't it funny that "The Lorax" has just been released as a 3D movie, since it wasn't a three-dimensional book?
Sorry. I think I've been around the forestry industry too long. We're raising a generation of kids who think paper is made from rare Brazilian rosewood and giant sequoias and quite possibly the corpse of a murdered John Muir.
Getting back to quotes, it's one thing to have a conflict between whether Woody Allen said that 80 percent of success is showing up or whether he actually said 90 percent.
And you will never get people to realize that a line break in Shakespeare does not end a sentence. "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York" is often given as "Now is the winter of our discontent. Made glorious summer by this sun of York," and the assumption that "now" refers to winter and not summer … oh, never mind.
What bothers me is the stupid glurge that is supposedly made intelligent and insightful commentary by placing it in the mouth of someone who would never have said such a thing, much as geese are fed before being turned into foie gras.
At least nobody takes "Confucius say secretary is like pencil sharpener — not permanent office fixture until screwed on desk!" as a serious attempt to quote K'ung-Tzu.
But ratchet down the vapidity just a little and you'll end up with a quote attributed to Master K'ung that could never possibly have passed his lips, in part because it's not the sort of topic he ever addressed and in part because, when he did speak, his words did not come out as charmingly self-obvious treacle.
But once it's out there — along with similar words of wisdom from Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Ben Franklin and Winston Churchill — it falls into the realm of bogosity that is passed around until it becomes true.
So if you look up "Eighty percent of success is showing up," you'll find 133,000 sources, while if you look up "Ninety percent of success is showing up," you'll get 244,000 hits, most attributing it to Allen.
I sometimes use hit-counts as a sort of spell-check, figuring that, if one spelling of the word gets 100,000 hits and a different spelling of the same word gets 19 million hits, the second spelling is probably correct, though this method doesn't help with affect/effect issues.
But 133,000 to 244,000 in Google is pretty much of a statistical dead heat. And, in this case, it appears that the lesser number is correct.
Maybe. Assuming that, when he was asked about the quote, Allen decided to put his energy into deflecting the whole idea rather than quibbling over the percentage.
"He's baffled that his advice to young playwrights — '80 percent of life is showing up' — is so well known. 'That quote has been used 10,000 times all over the world to represent me with some kind of profound insight,' he says. 'As if I could determine the percentage.'" — source: Orlando Sentinel; Orlando, Fla.; May 4, 2002
Meanwhile, I'm baffled that nobody ever provides the original source. "His advice to young playwrights" tells me nothing useful. And, of course, with Woody Allen, you don't know whether Woody Allen said it or one of Woody Allen's characters said it.
This distinction being critical since he insists that he isn't any of those people.
And the distinction being critical to only to self-doubting, over-serious Stephen Dedalus types, I suppose.
— Because you don't save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don't know yet what money is. Money is power, when you have lived as long as I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? Put but money in thy purse.
— Iago, Stephen murmured.
Anyway, once Brainyquote and FamousQuotes have got hold of a catchy phrase, it doesn't matter who said it or if anyone said it: Up it goes with whatever attribution was attached, and it becomes true.
The Stephen Dedaluses of this world being few enough that they'll never get enough hits to be right.
In other news:
Nate Beeler has been hired by the Columbus Dispatch to replace Jeff Stahler, who resigned after multiple accusations of plagiarism.
I often disagree with Beeler, though I love this one, lovingly swiped from Tom Spurgeon's site. But he's a solid commentator and I think that (A) the Dispatch has made a good hire and (B) the fact that they've hired anyone is a victory in tough times.
Comments 2
Comments are closed.