spurious Lincoln quotes

[victor steinbok]

GNArchive's earliest citation is to LATimes, Apr. 4, 1888, and it does
mention Lincoln. The next one is an ad in Bridgeport Morning News on
Nov 21, 1888. The quote appears in an ad by Jones, Keane & Co. without
attribution:

 People cannot be deceived. It is proverbially true that you can "fool
all the people some time, some of the people all the time, but you
can't fool all the people all the time."

Note the slight variation in language--general lack of "of".

In all, there are 54 citations in GNA, but the earliest (1887) is
bogus. Another one--from Dec/ 19, 1889, Irish Canadian--also appears
without attribution in a furniture ad (C.F. Adams Home Furnishing
House). This is odd because just below in the same ad you find,

 We believe in Barnum's theory that "American people like to be humbugged."

Now I have to search for that one! (j/k)

Just from the first 20 citations, most are obviously attributing the
line to Lincoln (all the remaining ones from the 1890s). I am still
looking for more non-Lincoln attributions.

VS-)

On 2/15/10, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: spurious Lincoln quotes
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here is an antedating by a single day of the famous quote attributed
> to Lincoln. The speaker is identified as "Mr. Wheeler" and he is
> probably the Chairman of the Prohibitionist Party Convention, Fred F.
> Wheeler.
>
> Citation: 1887 August 26, New York Times, Conscience in Politics, The
> Prohibition Party State Convention, Page 5, Column 2 (about 6
> paragraphs down).
>
> As I sat in the gallery noting the care and eagerness and anxiety of
> the leaders to secure its passage I could not help but think of that
> trite remark of Abraham Lincoln: 'You can fool all of the people, some
> of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time; but you
> can't fool all of the people all of the time.' [Applause.]
>
> http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C02E6DE1530E633A25755C2A96E9C94669FD7CF
>
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Garson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: spurious Lincoln quotes
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> James A. Landau wrote
>>> Subject:      spurious Lincoln quotes
>>> from Netscape News
>>> http://channels.isp.netscape.com/whatsnew/package.jsp?name=fte/lincoln/lincoln&floc=NI-slot1a
>>> Exposed! Lincoln Never Said THIS
>> ...
>>>
>>> So where did these quotes come from, if not from President Lincoln?
>>>
>>> "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people
>>> all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
>>>
>>> This was thought to be part of a speech Lincoln gave in September 1858 in
>>> Clinton, Illinois, but the line is not included in the text that was
>>> printed in the local newspaper. It was attributed to Lincoln in 1910 when
>>> two people remembered hearing him say it in 1856--54 years later.
>>>
>>
>> The Yale Book of Quotations has an earlier, 1887, attribution to
>> Lincoln for this quote. The context can be examined via the freely
>> accessible portion of the New York Times archive. YBQ also has a great
>> citation to Denis Diderot in 1754.
>>
>> Citation: 1887 August 27, New York Times, The Prohibition Convention.
>>
>> The vital fact which this convention establishes is that the
>> Prohibitionists cannot be fooled. Chairman WHEELER explicitly set
>> forth that fact in his speech on Thursday, when he quoted most aptly
>> LINCOLN'S remark that "you can fool all of the people "you can fool
>> all of the people some of the time; and you can fool  some of the
>> people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the
>> time."
>>
>> http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F04E4DE1530E633A25754C2A96E9C94669FD7CF
>>
>> Garson
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org