[Ads-l] Bogus Andrew Johnson quote?

[Jonathan Lighter]

The once respected _NYer_ fact-checkers seem to have taken it for granted
that the area of DC really *is* (or was) "twelve square miles."

JL

On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 3:39 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> The District of Columbia is approximately 68 square miles, of which
> approximately 61 square miles is land and approximately 7 square miles is
> water.  It was originally ten miles square (i.e., 100 square miles), but
> the federal government ceded the portion originally acquired from Virginia
> in 1846.  These seem like facts that Andrew Johnson would have known.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Friday, May 5, 2017 2:20 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Bogus Andrew Johnson quote?
>
> The New Yorker quotes AJ that Washington, DC, is "twelve square miles
> bordered by reality."
>
> Despite the usual zillion raw Google hits, my Spidey-sense says fat chance.
> And GB reveals nothing before 2008.
>
> I doubt that any 19th C. person would have been likely to say that any
> physical location was "bordered by reality."
>
> If Johnson had said it, we should heard about it long before 2008.
>
> Its form reminds me, somehow, of a recent, well-known, witticism that I
> cannot bring to mind.
>
> Has Barry or Garson looked into this?
>
> 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
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org