Rerun of a bad movie; Nail jelly to the wall

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dave Wilton wrote:

> Is there a source that addresses misattributed or fallacious quotes in
> something resembling a comprehensive manner? There are an enormous number of
> false quotations floating about out there. A single volume (or website) that
> debunks the worst of these would be a very useful tool. I know that many
> books of quotations and sites like snopes.com do this on a case-by-case
> basis, but I've never seen a source that attempts a comprehensive treatment.
>
> I'm not suggesting that Fred's book do this. I'm just wondering if anyone
> has done it.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has a section of misquotations.
My book will certainly address many misquotations.

The best book focusing on misquotations is Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys Finish
Last, which is really quite brilliant.  The quality of his research is
better than any other quotation book ever published (to date).  Another
one is Paul F. Boller and John George, They Never Said It : A Book of Fake
Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions, which is pretty good but
not nearly up to Keyes's standards.

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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