[Ads-l] "There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea."

[Peter Reitan]

There was a related example in a photography magazine from the 1920s that focuses on the need to kill bad ideas quickly, instead of on the invincibility of the bad ideas:


"So many people think retouching is merely to smooth and plaster up the face, whereas it is to help the portrait and, of course, to compensate for the defects in photography where colors photograph at different values.  I always put this point before people who speak about retouching, as you cannot be too quick to kill a bad idea that is going about.  You help the whole profession."


Photo-Era, Volume 45, Number 3, September 1920, page 121. HathiTrust.



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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2017 11:37:27 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea."

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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Subject:      Re: "There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea."
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On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 8:35 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Well, gee, if "you can kill a man but not an idea," then obviously there's
> no good way to kill a bad idea.
>

Well, if you look at it that way, the truth of the assertion is obvious.
That possibly explains why early instances of the saying are hard to find.
It's so obvious that it needs no expression.


--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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