Locke's Harlem/big apple quote --- what might have happened

[Jonathan Lighter]

The most famous ex. of this process may be the attribution to Voltaire of
the words, "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for
your right to say it."

The actual quote (as Fred already knows) is from _The Friends of Voltaire_ ,
by "S. G. Tallentyre"  (Evelyn B. Hall) (London: Smith, Elder), p. 199:  "I
disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say
it,' was his attitude now."

Despite the claim by Guterman in 1963 that something very similar really did
appear in Voltaire's letter to L'Abbe' Leriche of Feb. 6, 1770, it would
seem that this is not at all so.
That letter contains instead Voltaire's famous quote, "God is on the side of
the greater battalions."

JL


On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 9:29 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Locke's Harlem/big apple quote --- what might have
> happened
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> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 6/14/2009 05:48 PM, Gerald Cohen wrote:
> >...
> >Here's the key portion of the letter:
> >Ś...According to Harlem griots (oral historians), the clue to the
> >mystery is Harlem.  It is my understanding that Alain Locke,
> >professor of philosophy at Howard University, originated the term
> >during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920ąs.
> >    ŚDr. Locke, a graduate of Harvard University and the first black
> >Rhodes Scholar to attend Oxford University, used the term to depict
> >Harlem as the precious fruit in the Garden of Eden, an oasis for the
> >literary, musical and painting talents of oppressed black American
> >intellectuals. ...'
> >
> >Note that Ms. Daniels doesn't give Locke's statement as a quote.  *She*
> >(relying on the griots) is the one who interprets how Locke felt about
> >Harlem, and very possibly she is correct in this.  But that's not the same
> >as asserting that those were his very words.
>
> One algorithm is:
> A paraphrases X as having said something, or
> having discussed something.  No quotation marks.
> B sees what A wrote, and being a conscientious
> scholar, puts quotes around his quotation from
> A.  But which part of the quotation is X's words
> and which part A's words has become obscure.
> C sees what B wrote, which has quotation marks,
> and assumes X wrote it when actually B wrote it.
>
> (I encountered a case exactly like this in my
> (American colonial period) historical research.)
>
> >... There's a snowball effect here. Each time the quote is
> >mentioned uncritically in a new work, the assumption of its being bona
> fide
> >is increased.
>
> I can undoubtedly find writers on historiography
> who (paraphrasing, not quoting -- but since I'm
> giving neither name nor date, I can't get anyone
> into trouble) say how once an error gets into
> print it's almost impossible to eliminate it; or
> comment on the tendency of historians to form a
> chain of citation of their predecessors' errors.
>
> Joel
>
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