| − | Many quips attributed to Mark Twain are not his, due to what Ralph Keyes call the "the flypaper effect." The habit of unclaimed comments "sticking" to famous quotable figures. He quotes a librarian as saying "if it's humorous and cynical, it must be Mark Twain."<ref>Keyes, Ralph (1992), ''Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations,'' p 24.</ref> A famous disputed quote is "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." This has long been attributed to Twain. According to Keyes, quotation sleuths traced it to an unsigned editorial in the ''Hartford Courant'' and decided it was most likely by Charles Dudley Warner. However, there is evidence suggesting it may really be Twain's remark after all.<ref>Keyes p 194-5. Keyes also notes that the quotation, as printed in the ''Courant,'' actually opened with the words "A well known American writer once said," and that a 1923 memoir by a journalist who had known Twain mentioned never having seen in print Mark's saying about the weather</ref>. | + | Many quips attributed to Mark Twain are not his, due to what Ralph Keyes call the "the flypaper effect." The habit of unclaimed comments "sticking" to famous quotable figures. He quotes a librarian as saying "if it's humorous and cynical, it must be Mark Twain."<ref>Keyes, Ralph (1992), ''Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations,'' p 24.</ref> A famous disputed quote is "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." This has long been attributed to Twain. According to Keyes, quotation sleuths traced it to an unsigned editorial in the ''Hartford Courant'' and decided it was most likely by Charles Dudley Warner. However, there is evidence suggesting it may really be Twain's remark after all.<ref>Keyes p 194-5. Keyes also notes that the quotation, as printed in the ''Courant,'' actually opened with the words "A well known American writer once said," and that a 1923 memoir by a journalist who had known Twain mentioned never having seen in print Mark's saying about the weather</ref> |
| | *[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ Mark Twain, the Ice Storm, and Jesus Christ] | | *[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ Mark Twain, the Ice Storm, and Jesus Christ] |