[Ads-l] "There is a sucker born every 15 minutes."

[Joel Berson]

Does that mean that only one of every fifteen customers of Barnum was a sucker?  Impossibly few.

Joel

      From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 4:14 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "There is a sucker born every 15 minutes."
   
> On Aug 29, 2015, at 3:50 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> It's amazing the amount of fresh information available on line. According
> to Anne-Marie Hislop - no, I don't know who she is - the above was said by
> P. T. Barnum.
> 
And according to the best internet wisdom, or maybe the second best, what Barnum said was "There's a customer born every minute", which of course is consistent with, but distinct from, the sucker stat.  

On the other hand, wikipedia informs us, : 'There's a sucker born every minute' is a phrase most likely spoken by David Hannum, in criticism of both P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers."  YMMV.  (Haven't checked QI on this.)

LH



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