Quote: When you take stuff from one writer it ’s plagiarism, but when you take from many writers it’s called research (attrib Wilson Mizner 1938)

[Garson O'Toole]

On July 17th I sent a note to the list about a version of this adage,
and requested help in verifying an instance in The Commentator
magazine. Many thanks to Stephen Goranson for obtaining scans of the
October 1938 issue of The Commentator. The Yale Book of Quotations and
the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations include this saying with cites in
1941 and 1953 respectively. I summarize findings at the Quote
Investigator website:

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/09/20/plagiarism/

Here are the two earliest cites known (to me).

[FCWM] 1938, Tales of a Wayward Inn by Frank Case, Juniors and the
Jani, Page 248, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. (Google Books
snippet view; Verified on paper Fourth Printing 1939)

As Wilson Mizner says, "When you take stuff from one writer it’s
plagiarism, but when you take from many writers it’s called research."

http://books.google.com/books?id=O79AAAAAIAAJ&q=plagiarism#search_anchor

[CJCC] 1938 October, The Commentator magazine, "Do You Call THAT Art?"
by Joseph Cummings Chase, Page 26, Column 2, Payson Publishing, Inc.,
New York. (Google Books snippet view; Verified via page scans)

On the title page of most of the books on Art should be printed, "If
you steal from one person it’s plagiarism: if you steal from three
persons it’s research."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_8vAAAAMAAJ&q=plagiarism#search_anchor

Garson

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