a fake quotation misattributed

[Jonathan Lighter]

I like "emanated from the closets of British propagandists."

I mean, what exactly were they doing in those "closets"? Don't answer that.


JL

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: a fake quotation misattributed
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Paul Fussell's  _The Great War and Modern Memory_ explains that the once
> > celebrated quotation, attributed to Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914, that the
> > British had a "contemptible little army" that should be exterminated
> > immediately, was a forgery. Fussell confidently explains that  "It is
> now
> > known that the phrase emanated...from the closets of British
> > propagandists....The phrase was actually devised at the War Office by Sir
> > Frederick Maurice and _fathered upon_ the Kaiser" ( 16).
> >
>
> "Fathered [the phrase] upon the Kaiser"?!
>
> Well, okay. I guess that I can get that, if I give it a bit of thought.
>
> >
> > Fussell disdains to provide a source for this information, which is
> widely
> > accepted.
> >
> > This is about one-third correct. The falsity of the quotation was
> > publicized most influentially by Arthur Ponsonby in the well-known
> > _Falsehood in War-Time_ (1928), pp. 84-87. Â As Ponsonby explains,
> however,
> > he did not nail the forgery. After earlier investigations had turned up
> no
> > copy of the supposed order in German Army archives, Ponsonby informs us
> > that:
> >
> > "General Sir F. Maurice had the German newspaper files searched for the
> > alleged speech or order of the Kaiser, but without success. In an article
> > exposing the fabrication (_Daily News_, November 6, 1925), he remarks
> that
> > G.H.Q. hit on the idea of using routine orders to issue statements which
> it
> > was believed would encourage and _inspirit_ our men. Â 'Most of these
> took the
> > form of casting ridicule on the German Army....These efforts were seen to
> be
> > absurd by the men in the trenches, and were soon dropped.'"
> >
>
> "Inspirit"? That has a nice ring to it. Too bad that it didn't catch
> on. I like it better than _inspire_." OTOH, if the latter were the
> "new" (to me) term and _inspirit_ the old, worn-out one, I'd probably
> feel the opposite.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
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