Concept of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

[Dan Goncharoff]

I believe Ford use the phrase in early advertisements, before the
song. Something like, "one million people can't be wrong"
DanG



On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 7:00 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Concept of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "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.
>
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