Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in terms (John Charteris 1931)

[Garson O'Toole]

Thanks Jon. Here again is the citation under discussion:

Cite: 1931, At G.H.Q. by John Charteris, Quote Page 136, Cassell and
Company, Ltd., London. (Verified with scans; Thanks to the librarians
at Denison University)
[Begin excerpt]
Curzon did not give much time to Intelligence work. I fancy Military
Intelligence to him is a contradiction in terms.
[End excerpt]

A scan of page 135 from "At G.H.Q." indicates that the date of the
diary entry containing the quotation above was February 5, 1916. The
blog post I eventually write on this topic will include this date, but
will also mention that Charteris said that his dates were not
reliable.

"A Dictionary of English Folklore" (2000) by Jacqueline Simpson and
Steve Roud from Oxford University Press has this:
[Begin excerpt]
But Charteris himself said that in writing his memoirs he amplified
his contemporary notes from his recollections, so his dating cannot be
relied on.
[End excerpt]

The above statement is in a section about a WWI legend called "Angels
of Mons". The leading theory is that the legend was initiated by a
short story called "The Bowmen" by Arthur Machen. A diary entry by
Charteris about the legend antedated this tale. But the statement by
Charteris given above resolved (or reduced) the discrepancy.

Garson

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 3:49 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in
>              terms (John Charteris 1931)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Certainly the quip would have been both plausible and appropriate to the
> time and place.
>
> JL
>
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 2:39 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:      Re: Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in
>>              terms (John Charteris 1931)
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> > Charteris (1877-1946) is apparently quoting from his WW1 diary.  My SWAG
>> is
>> > that the original year is 1916.
>>
>> Thanks for your valuable response, Jon. The book does have multiple
>> dated diary entries. The page scan containing the quotation (page 136)
>> shows that the succeeding diary entry is dated February 8. The page
>> header says the year is 1916. I do not yet know the date of the entry
>> containing the quote because I do not have a scan of the previous
>> page.
>>
>> I would guess that the diary date is February 5. HathiTrust indicates
>> a match for "February 5" on the preceding page, page 135. "February 6"
>> and "February 7" have no matches on page 135.
>>
>> The Wikipedia entry for John Charteris suggests that there might be
>> controversy regarding the veracity some of the dates provided by
>> Charteris in "At G.H.Q."
>>
>> Garson
>>
>>
>> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>> >> Subject:      Quote: Military Intelligence to him is a contradiction in
>> >> terms
>> >>              (John Charteris 1931)
>> >>
>> >>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> Military Intelligence is a contradiction in terms
>> >>
>> >> This quip has been attributed to Groucho Marx and George Carlin. There
>> >> is some support indicating that they both used versions of this joke.
>> >> For example, The Yale Book of Quotations has the earliest Groucho
>> >> attribution in 1971. The form of the quip varies: the phrase "military
>> >> intelligence" is described as a contradiction in terms, a
>> >> contradiction in adjecto, an oxymoron, and mutually exclusive.
>> >> ...

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