[Ads-l] lies and statistics; Dilke or Darnell or...?

[Peter Reitan]

This one may not have been popularized, or idiomatic, but it expresses something similar; and is even more interesting in that it foreshadows an SNL skit by about 85 years:

"It is the work of the sharks, "land sharks," who fasten onto these poor innocents, and by the use of glowing descriptions (lies), selected statistics, beautifully colored maps and extracts from paid for articles in Dakota newspapers, induce these people to sacrifice their all for a home in the path of blizzards and on the wrong side of zero."

The Lafayette Advertiser (Louisiana), March 15, 1890, page 4.




> Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 17:05:24 +0000
> From: goranson at DUKE.EDU
> Subject: Re: lies and statistics; Dilke or Darnell or...?
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: lies and statistics; Dilke or Darnell or...?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Thanks, Garson. Similar reports apparently appeared in many papers.
> And thanks to John Baker I now have a copy of the Wed. 28 Oct. 1891, Yorksh=
> ire Post and Leeds Intelligencer page 3 [col. 7] article mentioned below. I=
> t's a letter to the editor, Oct. 23 from Fair Play in Leeds, "The Religious=
>  Census in Liverpool," and the name in the text is Mr. Parnell [Charles Ste=
> wart Parnell?] not Mr. Darnell:
> "Thus real information would be afforded as to the relative numbers of wors=
> hippers, and Mr. Parnell's dictum respecting fibs, lies, and statistics mig=
> ht--in one instance at least--be falsified."
> 
> Stephen Goranson
> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
> 
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
 		 	   		  
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