[Ads-l] When the Okies migrated to California, it raised the I.Q. in both states

Ben Yagoda byagoda at UDEL.EDU
Sun Oct 17 07:05:51 UTC 2021


Excellent post, Garson, and I say that as a Will Rogers biographer. I’ll add only (as I’m sure you are aware) that the fake WR quotes on the Internet are legion. I recently looked at the first twenty on the BrainyQuotes site and pegged sixteen of them as phony. Most of these are sort of homespun proverbs, which Rogers rarely dealt in, and don’t really sound like him. One of the most egregious is one of the most popular: "There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

Ben

www.benyagoda.com <http://www.benyagoda.com/> 

> On Oct 17, 2021, at 6:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system <LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
> 
> Date:    Sat, 16 Oct 2021 21:42:45 -0400
> From:    ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM <mailto:adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>>
> Subject: When the Okies migrated to California, it raised the I.Q. in both states
> 
> The statement in the subject line is often attributed to humorist Will
> Rogers. Wikipedia has an article titled "Will Rogers Phenomenon":
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers_phenomenon <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers_phenomenon>
> 
> New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon has received credit for a
> similar quip:
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> When all those New Zealanders went to Australia at the end of the ’70s
> the average IQ in both countries was lifted considerably.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> While exploring this topic I found an evolving family of expressions
> which is difficult to trace because of its variety. Here is a link to
> the Quote Investigator piece containing an initial match in 1939:
> 
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/16/iq/ <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/16/iq/>
> 
> Feedback welcome
> Garson O'Toole
> QuoteInvestigator.com <http://quoteinvestigator.com/>


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