"there is no such thing as bad publicity"

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 04:47 PM 1/24/2001 EST, Ron Butters wrote:
>The 1958 quote below is not really the same aa the quote in question....
>

In the post that initiated this thread, the observation was made
(accurately, I suspect), that "[t]his is one of those popular expressions
which are very hard to document because they are very variable in their
formulation. It exists in both a negative form, as above, and a positive
one: all publicity is good publicity." In that light, it's hard to make the
claim that "there is no such thing as bad publicity" and the other phrase
cited in that first post, i.e., "all publicity is good publicity," are
sharply distinct, for the purposes of exmaining the history of this cluster
of variable expressions, from "almost any publicity is good publicity." But
I am sure that perceptions could vary!


>I always assumed that Stanley [Fish] made up the phrase himself. Her certainly
>believed it.
>

But was he right? Sorry, skip the cosmic questions...!



Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu