Quote: A picture is worth ten thousand words (Arthur Brisbane 1915 July 26)

[Garson O'Toole]

Victor Steinbok sent me off-list a Google Books pointer to a great
earlier instance of the saying with "picture" in 1911. The words were
once again due to Arthur Brisbane. Google Books restricts access to
snippets, but HathiTrust shows the full text.

Cite: 1911 April 20, Printers' Ink, "Newspaper Copy That People Must
Read" by Arthur Brisbane, Page 17, Volume LXXV, Number 3, Decker
Communications Inc., New York. (HathiTrust)

NEWSPAPER COPY THAT PEOPLE MUST READ

ADVERTISING'S RELATION TO THE GROWTH OF READING ABILITY—THE
THUNDERSTORM AND "YELLOW" JOURNALISM—AN EXAMPLE OF THE POWER OF
COMPARISON IN WRITING

[Note—The following are extracts from an address by Mr. Brisbane,
editor of the New York Evening Journal, before the Syracuse (N. Y.)
Advertising Club.]

By Arthur Brisbane.
...
I don't like to talk in the abstract, and God forbid that I should
ever be called scholarly. Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words.
Use a picture with five words, a comparison in thirty words.

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3127465?urlappend=%3Bseq=215


The advice of Arthur Brisbane was repeated in another article in
Printers' Ink authored by Hartwell Mason in  June 1911:

Cite: 1911 June 1, Printers' Ink, "The Clever Use of Imagery in
Advertising" by Hartwell Mason, Page 39, Volume LXXV, Number 9, Decker
Communications Inc., New York. (HathiTrust)

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3127465?urlappend=%3Bseq=705


In the June 8, 1911 issue of Printers' Ink there was a letter from J.
J. Bukey who repeated the advice of Brisbane while crediting him: "Use
a picture. It's worth a thousand words. Use a picture with five
words."

Cite: 1911 June 8, Printers' Ink, [Letter dated May 23, 1911 from J.
J. Bukey], Page 84, Volume LXXV, Number 10, Decker Communications
Inc., New York. (HathiTrust)

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3127465?urlappend=%3Bseq=834

Garson

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Quote: A picture is worth ten thousand words (Arthur Brisbane
>              1915 July 26)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Fred discussed "A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words" at the
> Freakonomics blog yesterday:
>
> http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/07/14/a-pictures-worth-a-thousand-words/
>
> Here are some results for the basic phrase using "picture" and
> "thousand words" or "ten thousand words." A cartoon by Arthur Brisbane
> published on July 26, 1915 used the phrase "A picture is worth ten
> thousand words." The phrase was also used in advertisements published
> in 1915, and the words were credited to Brisbane. This information may
> already be in the files of the Yale Book of Modern Proverbs, or YBMP
> may have better data. ...

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