[Ads-l] Joke about keeping secrets and request for Sunday Telegraph citation in Gale database

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Sat Sep 21 16:55:18 UTC 2019


The QI website has a new entry (with acknowledgements):

Secrecy: The Art of Telling a Thing To Only One Person At a Time
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/09/21/secrecy/

If you have access to the Gale database containing the UK newspaper
"The Telegraph" and "The Sunday Telegraph" you could help me to verify
a 1977 citation and aid me in determining the full context.

Here is information about the Gale database.
https://www.gale.com/c/the-telegraph-historical-archive

Here is information about the citation I am trying to verify. If you
could send me the PDF showing the quotation and the metadata that
would be very helpful.

[Begin citation information]
It is a secret in the Oxford sense: you may tell it to only one person
at a time.
Oliver Franks (1905-92) British administrator
Sunday Telegraph, London (January 30, 1977)
[End citation information]

Stephen Goranson posted about the "Oxford secret" last month.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2019-August/155270.html

This topic was discussed in Nigel Rees's periodical “The
‘Quote…Unquote’ Newsletter” in 2011 and 2012. Back in 2012 I posted to
the ADS list about the mock definition of secrecy.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2012-January/115512.html

Garson

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