[Ads-l] Saying: Half the money spent on advertising is wasted, but no one knows which half

[Marc Sacks]

I've heard it as an injunction to first-year medical students: "Half of
what you are going to learn in med school is wrong. We just don't know
which half."

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 10:01 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Saying: Half the money spent on advertising is wasted,
> but no
>               one knows which half
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My ninth-grade science teacher, Mr. Rathman, used to say, "Half of
> everything we think we know is wrong. The question is which half."
>
> J
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 8:09 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.co=
> m>
> wrote:
>
> > Way back in 2012 Arnold Zwicky posted about the saying in the subject
> > line, and I replied with a few citations.
> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2012-July/120540.html
> >
> > After a brief decade delay, a Quote Investigator article has now been
> > posted.
> > https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/04/11/advertising/
> >
> > The earliest match in 1919 was located by Barry Popik, and it is
> > listed in "The New Yale Book of Quotations".
> >
> > I found a partial match in the New York periodical "Printers' Ink: A
> > Journal for Advertisers" in 1890:
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > =E2=80=A6 don=E2=80=99t forget that half of the money spent in
> advertisin=
> g is wasted =E2=80=A6
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > I also discovered that "The East Kent Times" of England in 1931
> > reported on a speech delivered by businessman William Hulme Lever who
> > co-founded Unilever. He ascribed the saying to his father William
> > Hesketh Lever (Lord Leverhulme) who had died in 1925:
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > His father used to say that half the money spent in advertising was
> > wasted, but he was unable to say which half it was. In order to solve
> > the problem they had not only to study the commodity they were
> > advertising but the public which they were trying to appeal to.
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > [Begin acknowledgement]
> > Great thanks to George Mannes and Arnold Zwicky whose inquiries led QI
> > to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Special
> > thanks to pioneering researchers Ralph Keyes, Barry Popik, Nigel Rees,
> > and Fred R. Shapiro. Keyes=E2=80=99s book "The Quote Verifier" pointed
> ou=
> t
> > that the saying had been attributed to John Wanamaker, William Hesketh
> > Lever, William Wrigley Jr., and George Washington Hill. Popik located
> > the key 1919 attribution to John Wanamaker.
> > [End acknowledgement]
> >
> > Feedback welcome
> > Garson O'Toole
> > QuoteInvestigator.com
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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