believe it or not (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Perhaps a precursor to Wolfgang Pauli's "That's not right, that's not
even wrong."?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2012 12:20 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: believe it or not
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      believe it or not
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Here's a folk saying that seems to have been overlooked despite its
> excellence:
>
> 1899 _The Speaker_  (London) (Jan. 28) 115: But they hardly seem to
> have attained that highest stage of art when a man is "such a liar
that
> you cannot even believe the opposite of what he says."
>
> 1947 _Soviet Russia Today_ XV (No. 8) 6 [GB snippet]: It reminds me
> sometimes of the Irishman who said of another Irishman, "The man is
> such a liar that you cannot even believe the opposite of what he
says."
>
> 1963 Richard W. Rowan _Cuba: The Big Red Lie_  (Kingston, N.Y.: Quinn)
> 41:
> A famous Chief of Intelligence once said of a foreign diplomat from
> whom it had been hoped to gain certain vital intelligence: "You can't
> even believe the opposite of what he says."
>
> 1968 D. N. Pritt, in _Labour Monthly_ (March) 142: That government has
> now reached the class described by an Irishman who said that his
> opponent was "such a liar that you cannot even believe the opposite of
> what he says."
>
> 1988 _Jewish Frontier_ LV [GB snippet]: The type Abba Eban had in mind
> when he quipped: "You can't even believe the opposite of what he
says."
>
> 2010
>
http://www.elitetrader.com/vB/showthread.php?s=0d2085a3ccd00d11cdcb64c1
> 371c9dae&postid=2879703:
> Anything Soros says is suspect. Every word out of his mouth is self-
> serving. You probably cannot even believe the opposite of what he says
> .
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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