Do you still beat your wife? (1901)

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:02 AM -0500 3/25/04, Sam Clements wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <Bapopik at AOL.COM>
>Subject: Do you still beat your wife? (1901)
>
>[Fred Shapiro writes:]
>
>>  I don't think anyone who has dealt with reporters overestimates their
>>  intelligence, training, or accuracy.  A couple of weeks ago the New York
>>  Times printed an article about the origins of the expression "When did you
>>  stop beating your wife?"  They interviewed me for the article, but
>  > referred to me throughout the piece as "Fred Siegel."  ...
>
>(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)(New York Times)
>>  On Council's Budget List: More Funds to Sue Mayor; City Hall Notes
>>  By ABBY GOODNOUGH. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Apr
>24, 1999. p. B2 (1 page) :
>>     The Mayor was partly right, said Fred Siegel, a Yale University
>librarian and editor of the Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations.
>The Police Commissioner was indeed referring to a type of logical fallacy
>that was "written about by Aristotle," Mr. Siegel said.
>>     But he added that the actual wife-beating question could be traced not
>to ancient Greece, but to "Legal Laughs: A Joke for Every Jury," a 1914 book
>by Gus C. Edwards.
>

In terms of the actual question (and the point on questions building
in presuppositions), of course it's largely a matter of definition as
to who came up with it first.  For the Megarians (3d century B.C.),
the sophism of choice was "Do you still beat your father? Answer yes
or no."  The scholastics preferred "Do you still beat your ass?" [the
donkey, not fundament].  And for us moderns, "Do you still beat your
wife?"  24 centuries of social progress...

Larry Horn