Can I quote you?
..which
in its turn used to be known as the Bank of NSW – aah, those were the
days!). She had a young son, Jack, who was at his first year at school. All
the first years had to be assessed for their swimming prowess, to which end
a dozen or so were lined up at the end of the pool and were being given instructions
by the teacher before they gingerly got in.
Jack was obviously a free thinker and, before anybody could react, jumped straight
in – and sank like a stone. When he was fished out Jack spluttered, ‘That’s
harder than it looks’.
Jack said a philosophical mouthful there.
I recorded a Warren Zevon special on Foxtel’s Stvdio channel a few days ago
and watched about half of it this afternoon. I liked Werewolves of London
and a couple of his other songs, but I can’t say that I’m familiar
with the bulk of his output. Warren decided to film himself making one last
album when he found out that he had only two months to live. That’s what
I call a deadline, by the way.
Apparently nearly all his songs make mention of death, and he typically had
a picture of a skull (smoking a cigarette) on his back stage pass. When he was
getting his suit fitted before doing his last David Letterman show, he picked
up a porcelain skull and mugged to the camera, ‘Alas poor Yorick! I knew
him Horatio..’ and I thought to myself, ‘you got that wrong, mate.
It’s ‘Alas poor Yorick! I knew him well!’’ But Warren
was right, and I, who counts Hamlet as my favourite Shakespearean play, was
wrong. Which shows, I s’pose, how pervasive these misquotes are.
‘Money is the root of all evil’ sounds fair enough, that is until
you compare it with the original quote. (1 Timothy 6:10) ‘For the love
of money is the root of all evil: blah, blah, blah..’ which, of course,
would be better paraphrased ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’
That actually makes sense.
‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ was never written, in the one phrase
at least, by Conan Doyle, although I’m sure it’s cropped up in subsequent
Sherlock Holmes’ movies. I seem to remember Watson ejaculating a lot in
the Sherlock Holmes’ books. That never made it to the screen..
Similarly, ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ was apparently never uttered in
the original Star Trek series.
Another classic movie misquote is ‘Play it again, Sam’, which was
actually ‘Play it, Sam, for old times’ sake, play As Time Goes By‘.
‘Do you feel lucky, punk?’ was actually ‘…you’ve got to ask yourself
one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?’
All of which makes one wonder if we get the obvious and so easily checkable
wrong, and wrong over and over again until the original quote itself sounds
wrong, is it any wonder that court cases so often get bogged down trying to
establish the objective truth?
One last example: ‘Music soothes the savage beast’. I know it’s
mostly deployed when we’re talking about some riotously drunken idiot
or idiots finally sitting down at a rock concert, but there’s no evidence
that yer actual beast of the forest or enraged animal for that matter is affected
in any way by music, so it’s just a very stupid misquote. ‘Beast’
of course, should be ‘breast’ and the actual quote* is: ‘Musick
has Charms to soothe a savage Breast. To Soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.’
Now that’s what Musick can actually do..
*William Congreve’s play, The Mourning Bride (1697)
A little Learning is a dang’rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Piërian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir’d at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc’d, behold with strange surprize
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleas’d at first the tow’ring Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
Th’eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But those attain’d, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen’d way,
Th’increasing prospect tires our wand’ring eyes,
Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
Alexander Pope 1709