Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall

[Fred Shapiro]

yOn Wed, 22 Jan 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>    Two presidential phrases.  What does Fred Shapiro have?

This question is a good excuse for me to clarify a point.  Barry's
postings sometimes seem to envision that the Yale Dictionary of Quotations
is going to cover every phrase or expression ever uttered; this
expectation parallels his apparent expectation that the OED should cover
every term ever uttered in English or any other language.  In fact, my
book will be limited to more significant quotations, just as every
real-world reference book has to be limited in various ways.  It would
never occur to me that "rerun of a bad movie" or "nail jelly to the wall"
would be significant enough for me to cover.

In a way I hate to articulate the above, because Barry posts such great
stuff in furtherance of his unlimited vision of inclusiveness and I
don't want to discourage him, but I don't want unrealistic expectations to
grow up with regard to my book.

Please keep up the great work, Barry!

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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