"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

January 6, 2011 9:29 AM

Quote Investigator

via dhartung

posted by jtron (25 comments total)

Yay, maybe I can finally get some closure. ("Closure" heh)
posted by DU at 9:33 AM on January 6, 2011

Hurrah. I've wanted to start a site like this, and I'm very glad this is being done.
posted by willF at 9:40 AM on January 6, 2011

Nice.
posted by XMLicious at 9:48 AM on January 6, 2011

I'm guessing the researchers at the other QI will have mixed feelings about this
posted by iotic at 9:48 AM on January 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

What a helpful human being!
posted by Greg Nog at 9:53 AM on January 6, 2011

I want to him to hunt down the man who coined "moving forward" so I can kill him.

_{Or her. Whatever.}
posted by clarknova at 10:20 AM on January 6, 2011

Quote Investigator: Yes, QI will explore this celebrated quote for you.

Do they really need to put that in every dang post? As a catch phrase, it is sorely lacking in "That sounds like a job for . . . Superman!" zip.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:21 AM on January 6, 2011

I want to him to hunt down the man who coined "moving forward" so I can kill him.

And then you'll be able to move ... on.










Puts on sunglasses.


YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAH!


(Am I doing this right?)
posted by chavenet at 10:41 AM on January 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

I want to him to hunt down the man who coined "moving forward" so I can kill him.

Please also track down the originator of "now more than ever".
posted by wabashbdw at 10:51 AM on January 6, 2011

Please also track down the originator of "now more than ever".

If you want to get old school about it, the fool who first blurted "in times like these" has a grave in dire need of pissing on.
posted by clarknova at 11:04 AM on January 6, 2011

"a Ms.Turbian is on the phone..."
posted by clavdivs at 11:08 AM on January 6, 2011

This is super cool. Thanks for the link!
posted by spiderskull at 11:30 AM on January 6, 2011

Something that's been floating around at the back of my mind for a while now is that Americans (collectively, not individually, obviously) seem to really, really love quotations. American novels, films, websites, email signatures, etc., seem to make use of quotations far more frequently than those from most other nationalities. And there seem to be quite a few American writers who are quoted all over the place, despite the fact that the bulk of their work is rarely read. Is this a cultural phenomenon that other people have observed? Or am I totally wrong?
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 11:37 AM on January 6, 2011

Wow, this is the first FPP that was possibly pulled from my facebook status. I'm honored and possibly a little creeped out?
posted by Eideteker at 11:43 AM on January 6, 2011

[T]here seem to be quite a few American writers who are quoted all over the place, despite the fact that the bulk of their work is rarely read.

Nice! I'm gonna embroider this on a pillow.
posted by mreleganza at 12:37 PM on January 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wikiquotes was supposed to do this, but because they (I think) accept anything that appears in print as an actual quote, the site is riddled with errors.
posted by LarryC at 12:59 PM on January 6, 2011

Eideteker: nope, got it from a comment made by dhartung in another thread; it's linked above
posted by jtron at 1:18 PM on January 6, 2011

There seem to be quite a few American writers who are quoted all over the place, despite the fact that the bulk of their work is rarely read.

(Attributed to Samuel Clemens.)

(Or, at least, it will be.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:12 PM on January 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Speaking of quote attribution...

I missed this the first time around, but in the 'best of recent memory' awards on reddit for the category "best comment", this gem was nominated.
posted by panaceanot at 2:54 PM on January 6, 2011

The fact that this website exists makes my inner pedant very happy.
posted by immlass at 3:20 PM on January 6, 2011

> Something that's been floating around at the back of my mind for a while now is that Americans (collectively, not individually, obviously) seem to really, really love quotations. American novels, films, websites, email signatures, etc., seem to make use of quotations far more frequently than those from most other nationalities. And there seem to be quite a few American writers who are quoted all over the place, despite the fact that the bulk of their work is rarely read. Is this a cultural phenomenon that other people have observed? Or am I totally wrong?

No, I'm afraid you're totally wrong. Russians use quotations more than Americans do, and pretty much the entirety of Persian literature is based on complicated quotes of and allusions to other Persian literature. The impulse to quote is a basic human one, going back farther than we have written evidence (it is clear, for instance, that Homer was quoting earlier renditions of the epic stories he used for the Iliad and Odyssey).

This looks like a great site; thanks for linking it! (It would also be great if we could avoid turning this thread into yet another round of "here are some cliches I hate," since this isn't about cliches.)
posted by languagehat at 4:59 PM on January 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Now more than ever was a Nixon reelection slogan.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:26 PM on January 6, 2011

But how will they investigate verbs? Or do they mean quotation investigations?
posted by yerfatma at 6:06 PM on January 6, 2011

Oh, neat. Thanks, jtron! I was already chuffed that QI recapitulated my own earlier research in askmefi (I couldn't find anything like it elsewhere at the time of posting), and managed to go much further given access to deeper sources.
I'd still like to know who T.H. Thompson is supposed to be. I was unable to dig up any logical suspects.

There seems to be some overlap, unsurprisingly, between QI contributions and Wikiquote contributions -- that was how I found it in the first place.

It's interesting how quote attributions get mangled -- like Wear Sunscreen migrating from Mary Schmich to Kurt Vonnegut! -- in a way similar to urban legends, which have a way of migrating from locale or personage to one better known to the audience. Obviously, Watson/Maclaren is utterly forgotten today, so attributing this quote to him would be meaningless to many (not that Philo is that much better known); but I just don't know why somebody would pick Plato for this sentiment.
posted by dhartung at 10:53 PM on January 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not once but twice, while reading those posts, I thought to myself 'Ah, Stephen Fry looked into this did he?'. By the third article I had finally figured out what was going on.
posted by Gordafarin at 3:32 PM on January 7, 2011