Quote: Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler (UNCLASSIFIED)

Thu Feb 25 19:26:05 UTC 2010

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

A couple of other useful terms when doing "date probes" (I like that
name, Garson) in Google Books are "copyright", and when searching Govt
documents, "fiscal year".

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Garson O'Toole
> Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 1:05 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Quote: Everything should be as simple as it can be, but
> not simpler (antedating attrib Albert Einstein 1950)
>
> ---------------------- 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: Quote: Everything should be as simple as it can be,
> but not
>               simpler (antedating attrib Albert Einstein 1950)
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Thanks for your response Victor. I think the snippet you located that
> Google Books dates as 1949 is really a snippet in the June 1950 issue
> of Poetry that I have verified on paper. Before verifying cites on
> paper I typically use "date probes" to check for plausibility when
> document viewing is restricted to snippets. In this case probing the
> document with dates provides very useful information.
>
> I am certain that the following paragraphs describe an obvious
> strategy to you Victor and to many other list members. But I include
> them here because they may be useful to other individuals who are
> starting to use Google Books for research and who are confronted with
> the aggravating restrictions imposed by snippet view combined with
> notoriously inaccurate metadata.
>
> Here is a link to the volume under discussion:
> http://books.google.com/books?id=GQEKAAAAIAAJ&
>
> If you type "June 1950" into the search box for the Poetry journal
> document then GB will display three matches. The match on page 125 is
> the correct page number of the first page of the issue dated June
> 1950. If you type "July 1950" into the search box then GB will display
> another three matches. The match on page 188 is the correct page
> number of the first page of the July 1950 issue of Poetry.
>
> The Einstein attribution appears on page 180 according to GB. That
> number is accurate, and the page falls between the first page of the
> June issue and the first page of the July issue. Indeed, the citation
> is located in the last article of the June issue. Sometimes the
> information obtained by typing in dates is not clear-cut. It can be
> incomplete, confusing, or misleading, but I still recommend the
> procedure as a "sanity check".
>
> Thanks for mentioning the aphorism instance dated 1948. I also found
> this match in the collection of critical essays by Louis Zukofsky
> titled "Prepositions" that was published in 1981. An earlier version
> of this collection was published in 1967 or 1968.
>
> Citation: 1981, Prepositions: the collected critical essays of Louis
> Zukofsky (Expanded Edition), Page 50-51, University of California
> Press. Berkeley. (Google Books limited view)
>
>
http://books.google.com/books?id=sBPfUsOE7QcC&q=Einstein#v=snippet&q=Ei
> nstein&f=false
>
> When I looked at the full text of the 1950 review written by Louis
> Zukofsky in the journal Poetry I saw that it was the same as the text
> of the essay in Prepositions. The review by Zukofsky is of the volume
> titled "William Carlos Williams" by Vivienne Koch (part of The Makers
> of Modern Literature Series). The essay in Prepositions is a large
> excerpt of the review in Poetry.
>
> The date 1948 does appear at the end of the Prepositions text. When I
> typed up my post last night I omitted this cite because I prefer
> public publication dates to this type of internal document date of
> perhaps uncertain reliability. But the real reason was indolence.
> Thanks for your thoroughness in locating this cite. I should have
> included it. Publication in a journal does require a lead time, so
> maybe the 1948 date is from a notebook of drafts. Further confirmatory
> evidence for the 1948 date would help.
>
> Thanks for finding and sharing another stylish version of the quote:
> "Everything should be as simple as it _is_, but not simpler." And
> thanks for the valuable feedback.
>
> Garson
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 3:13 AM, Victor Steinbok
<aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-------------
> ----------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Quote: Everything should be as simple as it can
be,
> but not
> >              simpler (antedating attrib Albert Einstein 1950)
> >
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> >
> > A couple of VERY minor points that in no way detract from Garson's
> work.
> >
> > Another reprint of Zukovsky's essays dates the same passage (or, at
> > least, that particular part of the essay) to 1948 and it looks like
a
> > letter to WCW that's published as an essay--or perhaps the editor
> just
> > made it appear that way. Perhaps both are wrong--I found this
snippet
> > that GB dates to 1949
> > http://bit.ly/bhiHSd
> > It is unquestionably the same excerpt and it in the journal Poetry,
> so
> > it seems to be the right place. Should be verified.
> >
> > There is a parallel quotation from William Saroyan (1964,
> apparently):
> >
> >> The matter of style is one that always excites controversy, but to
> me
> >> it's as simple as A B C, if not simpler.
> >
> > No, I am not suggesting the two are in any way related. In fact,
this
> > turn of phrase is quite common.
> >
> > As for the original quotation, there is an interesting Dore Ashton
> > version (apparently from 1972 Studio International):
> >
> >> Everything should be as simple as it _is_, but not simpler.
> >
> > Ashton credits someone else attributing the line to Einstein. (Can't
> > tell who the intermediary is from the snippets.) In fact, the same
> > version appears in a couple of other sources (1965 and 1971) but I
> could
> > not identify or verify them.
> >
> > The version "as simple as possible" appears in some intermediary
> > publications--in 1969 by Jonathan Williams and again several times
in
> > the 1970s, but it seems to be the version that is most commonly used
> > today--George Will seems to have opened this can of worms on Mar.
18,
> > 1982. But the NYT had the same version nearly a month earlier (free
> > version here: http://bit.ly/baCFHZ) in a story about an 18 year old
> > Rhodes scholar. Only a year earlier, Time put out a Newswatch column
> by
> > Thomas Griffith (Apr. 27, 1981) that used "as it can be" version. So
> > both coexisted for some time, perhaps even on mass-produced posters
> > (that seems to be the most likely possibility for an 18-year old to
> have
> > pinned it on her wall).
> >
> > VS-)
> >
> > On 2/25/2010 1:21 AM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> >> Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
> >>
> >> This saying (and variants) are usually attributed to Albert
> Einstein.
> >> The Yale Book of Quotations has the earliest attribution and it is
> >> dated 1972. YBQ also states "No source has been traced for this
> >> quotation, which sometimes takes the form 'A theory should be made
> ...
> >> '"
> >>
> >> The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations (2008) has an
> attribution
> >> to Einstein in 1977 and says "The original source of this
oft-quoted
> >> remark has not been found despite much searching." The Oxford
> >> Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2006) has it without a date.
> >>
> >> In 1950 the prominent modernist poet Louis Zukofsky writing in the
> >> journal Poetry attributed a version of the aphorism to Albert
> >> Einstein. The quote appears in a review by Zukofsky of the volume
> >> William Carlos Williams by Vivienne Koch (The Makers of Modern
> >> Literature Series). This is the earliest citation I have located.
> >>
> >> Citation: 1950 June, Poetry, Reviews section, Poetry in a Modern
Age
> >> by Louis Zukofsky, Page 180, Vol. 76, No. 3, Modern Poetry
> >> Association. (Google Books snippet view. Verified on paper.)
> >>
> >> There is also the other side of the coin minted by Einstein:
> >> "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler" - a
> >> scientist's defense of art and knowledge - of lightness,
> completeness
> >> and accuracy.
> >>
> >>
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQEKAAAAIAAJ&q=minted#search_anchor
> >>
> >> Louis Zukofsky used the maxim in section A-12 of the poem A. The
> table
> >> of contents of the 1978 edition of the poem says that section A-12
> was
> >> composed in 1950 and 1951.
> >>
> >> Citation: 1978, A by Louis Zukofsky, Page 143, University of
> >> California Press, Berkeley.
> >>
> >> Had he asked me to say Kadish
> >> I believe I would have said it for him.
> >> How fathom his will
> >> Who had taught himself to be simple.
> >> Everything should be as simple as it can be,
> >> Says Einstein,
> >> But not simpler.
> >>
> >>
>
http://books.google.com/books?id=1GvlVBB8soEC&q=Einstein#v=snippet&q=Ei
> nstein&f=false
> >>
> >> Syndicated newspaper columnist Sydney J Harris used a version of
the
> >> saying in 1964 without attribution.
> >>
> >> Citation: 1964 January 9, New Castle News, Strictly Personal by
> Sydney
> >> J. Harris. Page 4, New Castle, Pennsylvania. (NewspaperArchive)
> >>
> >> In every field of inquiry, it is true that all things should be
made
> >> as simple as possible - but no simpler. (And for every problem that
> is
> >> muddled by over-complexity, a dozen are muddled by over-
> simplifying.)
> >>
> >> (This cite is not freely accessible. Here is a link to the column
in
> >> the Tri City Herald on January 14, 1964.(Google News Archive))
> >> http://bit.ly/cJVkMh
> >>
> >> The WikiQuote webpage on Einstein presents the following
interesting
> >> 1933 statement: "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of
> >> all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and
> as
> >> few as possible without having to surrender the adequate
> >> representation of a single datum of experience." However, I think
it
> >> would still take a creative act to produce the elegant saying
> >> "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler" from
> >> the 1933 remark.
> >> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
> >>
> >> Lastly, here is a bonus citation that I have not checked: New York
> >> Times. 1963 December 8. (Google News Archive)
> >> ... wants help in locating a quotation which he remembers as:
> >> "Everything must be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
...
> >> http://bit.ly/cUwI0f
> >>
> >> Garson
> >>
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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