Concept of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

[George Thompson]

"Fifty-million Frenchmen *can't* be wrong!"
Except when fifty-million Frenchmen hold an opinion that differs from mine,
in which case there can be only one explanation, no?

As to the origin -- I have read, many years ago, that it was a slogan coined
by a theatrical promoter who had brought a (maybe) famous French (maybe)
beauty to perform in this country.  If there were those who doubted her fame
or her beauty, well, "Fifty-million Frenchmen *can't* be wrong!"
This might have been Florenz Ziegfeld, whose wife was Anna Held, who I
believe to have been French, and a beauty, and a performer.
I will check further, later this evening.

GAT

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 12:57 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > the plurality or majority of consumers cannot be wrong
>
> "Fifty-million Frenchmen *can't* be wrong!"
>
> Anybody else remember this one? That slogan goes back so far that,
> even though it was once an almost-everyday expression, I've never
> really understood what was behind the "wink," so to speak. I was too
> young to get it.
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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