"War is God's way...."

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Sun May 18 18:46:38 UTC 2014


Possibly the hottest new misattributed quote is this:

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

It is confidently assigned to "Ambrose Bierce, in his _Devil's
Dictionary_."

I immediately knew that was wrong, even when it was cited by Fareed
Zakaria, because not only have I read Ambrose Bierce's _Devil's
Dictionary_,  but I can also recall the popularity, around 1970, of the
saying "Death is God's way of telling you to slow down."   There is also
the much later, "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."

GB takes the "war" zinger back to 2002, quite some time after Bierce's
disappearance 100 years ago.


JL



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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