Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in terms (John Charteris 1931)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Certainly the quip would have been both plausible and appropriate to the
time and place.

JL

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in
>              terms (John Charteris 1931)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > Charteris (1877-1946) is apparently quoting from his WW1 diary.  My SWAG
> is
> > that the original year is 1916.
>
> Thanks for your valuable response, Jon. The book does have multiple
> dated diary entries. The page scan containing the quotation (page 136)
> shows that the succeeding diary entry is dated February 8. The page
> header says the year is 1916. I do not yet know the date of the entry
> containing the quote because I do not have a scan of the previous
> page.
>
> I would guess that the diary date is February 5. HathiTrust indicates
> a match for "February 5" on the preceding page, page 135. "February 6"
> and "February 7" have no matches on page 135.
>
> The Wikipedia entry for John Charteris suggests that there might be
> controversy regarding the veracity some of the dates provided by
> Charteris in "At G.H.Q."
>
> Garson
>
>
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in
> >> terms
> >>              (John Charteris 1931)
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Military Intelligence is a contradiction in terms
> >>
> >> This quip has been attributed to Groucho Marx and George Carlin. There
> >> is some support indicating that they both used versions of this joke.
> >> For example, The Yale Book of Quotations has the earliest Groucho
> >> attribution in 1971. The form of the quip varies: the phrase "military
> >> intelligence" is described as a contradiction in terms, a
> >> contradiction in adjecto, an oxymoron, and mutually exclusive.
> >>
> >> The earliest evidence I have located is in a non-fiction book in 1931
> >> by a British Brigadier-General named John Charteris.
> >>
> >> Cite: 1931, At G.H.Q. by John Charteris, Quote Page 136, Cassell and
> >> Company, Ltd., London. (Verified with scans; Thanks to the librarians
> >> at Denison University)
> >> [Begin excerpt]
> >> Curzon did not give much time to Intelligence work. I fancy Military
> >> Intelligence to him is a contradiction in terms.
> >> [End excerpt]
> ...
>
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