4 ms·

Out of Osama's Death, A Fake Quotation is Born

18 points by AndrewMoffat 15y ago

AndrewMoffat 15y ago
These things are fascinating to me. They're like mind-viruses...hacking our belief systems so effectively that they spread with amazing speed and ease, and persist with incredible resilience.
- jerf 15y ago
  You'ce going to love the word "meme", then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
  - AndrewMoffat 15y ago
    I had no idea there was so much work on the subject. Thanks!
    - count 15y ago
      Astonishingly not mentioned on Wikipedia, is the novel "Snow Crash", which deals with this exactly as a 'mind virus'. It's also a great work of science fiction in it's own right (predicting Second Life, for example).
MaxGabriel 15y ago
Interesting, but extremely shallow work by the author. You checked some quote sites? That's the extent of the research done for this piece? Not taking into account the idea that they are maybe just misattributing it?
- MaxGabriel 15y ago
  I don't understand why this comment was downvoted. The author, in the updated post to this article, said "I was wrong." http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-... Unsurprisingly, it was not maliciously intended, it was just misattributed. As McArdle acknowledges, a facebook user had posted the first sentence, followed by the King quotation in quotations marks. When retweeted, the quotation marks were dropped (apparently to fit Twitter's character limit, according to McArdle). You might think that its unfair criticism of an author for sharing a quick thought on a blog, or for making a mistake. You would be wrong. This post by McArdle is only one of many instances of her doing extremely poor research/lying in her posts for the Atlantic. An MIT Prof has dedicated pages upon pages to demonstrating how poor of a journalist McArdle is: "... the key point is that McArdle makes a lot of stuff up, and hence is untrustworthy across the board: why should you believe any argument from someone whom, everytime you check closely, gets even the little stuff wrong — and I agree with that." and "It is now...simple prudence to assume that any fact she presents is, as she puts it, “a hypothetical” unless footnoted and checked." http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/its-not-that-mcardle-cant-read-its-that-she-cant-wont-think-part-one/ http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/its-not-that-m... It should come as no surprise that McArdle has whole hosts of people, entire websites dedicated to her being fired. To slack up on McArdle is to tolerate shoddy journalism not based in the facts.
zacwest 15y ago
Penn invented the quote, sort of. First: https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65132242770464769 https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65132242770464769 Followup: https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65246380024807424 https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65246380024807424
- famousactress 15y ago
  Further, he attributes this site: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23924.Martin_Luther_King_Jr_ http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23924.Martin_Luther_K... [Edit] Sorry, no.. He retweets the attribution, and admits the full quote is likely false. [Edit] Further, here is the user who added this quote to the site.. Err, just 2 hours ago. http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5286778-tatyana http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5286778-tatyana
Tcepsa 15y ago
Looks like most of it IS an MLK Jr. quote, just not the first sentence. See, for example, http://www.quotesstar.com/quotes/r/returning-hate-for-hate-multiplies-159261.html http://www.quotesstar.com/quotes/r/returning-hate-for-hate-m...
- deleted 15y ago
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huntero 15y ago
Google allows you to search up to a certain date. The results up to April 30th remove much of this latest "resurgence" of the quote, but it's still pretty much saturated with quotes about Bin Laden, a lot of the dates are just wrong and confusing Google. I still don't see anything definitive attributing the quote to MLK http://bit.ly/kC6VIR http://bit.ly/kC6VIR <- Google Search to April 30th.
tokenadult 15y ago
The Mark Twain quotation that has been making the rounds today, "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure" also appears to be fake. (That is more to be expected, as Mark Twain is the favorite attribution for newly made-up quotations in English.) I checked Snopes for that one, but it's too new to be on Snopes, I think, and anyway isn't in Google Books either. A response by one of my friends on Facebook to today's flurry of quotes was this status message: "People believe anything they read on the internet if it fits their preconceived notions." -- Thomas Jefferson. The Atlantic author did some reasonable checking for the purported King quotation. "Searching Martin Luther King Jr. quote pages for the word "enemy" does not turn up this quote, only things that probably wouldn't go over nearly so well, like 'Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.' I'm pretty sure that this quote, too, is fake." For a book-length work on tracing quotations, which I bought years ago, see The Quote Sleuth. http://www.amazon.com/Quote-Sleuth-Manual-Tracer-Quotations/dp/0252016955 http://www.amazon.com/Quote-Sleuth-Manual-Tracer-Quotations/...
- woodall 15y ago
  I admit to posting that quote on my wall; for same. However, to try and make up for it I did a bit of research. Clarence Darrow is quoted as saying: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Sounds a lot alike?

18 points by AndrewMoffat 15y ago

These things are fascinating to me. They're like mind-viruses...hacking our belief systems so effectively that they spread with amazing speed and ease, and persist with incredible resilience.

jerf 15y ago
You'ce going to love the word "meme", then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
- AndrewMoffat 15y ago
  I had no idea there was so much work on the subject. Thanks!
  - count 15y ago
    Astonishingly not mentioned on Wikipedia, is the novel "Snow Crash", which deals with this exactly as a 'mind virus'. It's also a great work of science fiction in it's own right (predicting Second Life, for example).

MaxGabriel 15y ago

Interesting, but extremely shallow work by the author. You checked some quote sites? That's the extent of the research done for this piece? Not taking into account the idea that they are maybe just misattributing it?

MaxGabriel 15y ago
I don't understand why this comment was downvoted. The author, in the updated post to this article, said "I was wrong." http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-... Unsurprisingly, it was not maliciously intended, it was just misattributed. As McArdle acknowledges, a facebook user had posted the first sentence, followed by the King quotation in quotations marks. When retweeted, the quotation marks were dropped (apparently to fit Twitter's character limit, according to McArdle). You might think that its unfair criticism of an author for sharing a quick thought on a blog, or for making a mistake. You would be wrong. This post by McArdle is only one of many instances of her doing extremely poor research/lying in her posts for the Atlantic. An MIT Prof has dedicated pages upon pages to demonstrating how poor of a journalist McArdle is: "... the key point is that McArdle makes a lot of stuff up, and hence is untrustworthy across the board: why should you believe any argument from someone whom, everytime you check closely, gets even the little stuff wrong — and I agree with that." and "It is now...simple prudence to assume that any fact she presents is, as she puts it, “a hypothetical” unless footnoted and checked." http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/its-not-that-mcardle-cant-read-its-that-she-cant-wont-think-part-one/ http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/its-not-that-m... It should come as no surprise that McArdle has whole hosts of people, entire websites dedicated to her being fired. To slack up on McArdle is to tolerate shoddy journalism not based in the facts.

zacwest 15y ago

Penn invented the quote, sort of. First: https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65132242770464769 https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65132242770464769 Followup: https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65246380024807424 https://twitter.com/#!/pennjillette/status/65246380024807424

famousactress 15y ago
Further, he attributes this site: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23924.Martin_Luther_King_Jr_ http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23924.Martin_Luther_K... [Edit] Sorry, no.. He retweets the attribution, and admits the full quote is likely false. [Edit] Further, here is the user who added this quote to the site.. Err, just 2 hours ago. http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5286778-tatyana http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5286778-tatyana

Tcepsa 15y ago

Looks like most of it IS an MLK Jr. quote, just not the first sentence. See, for example, http://www.quotesstar.com/quotes/r/returning-hate-for-hate-multiplies-159261.html http://www.quotesstar.com/quotes/r/returning-hate-for-hate-m...

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huntero 15y ago

Google allows you to search up to a certain date. The results up to April 30th remove much of this latest "resurgence" of the quote, but it's still pretty much saturated with quotes about Bin Laden, a lot of the dates are just wrong and confusing Google. I still don't see anything definitive attributing the quote to MLK http://bit.ly/kC6VIR http://bit.ly/kC6VIR <- Google Search to April 30th.

tokenadult 15y ago

The Mark Twain quotation that has been making the rounds today, "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure" also appears to be fake. (That is more to be expected, as Mark Twain is the favorite attribution for newly made-up quotations in English.) I checked Snopes for that one, but it's too new to be on Snopes, I think, and anyway isn't in Google Books either. A response by one of my friends on Facebook to today's flurry of quotes was this status message: "People believe anything they read on the internet if it fits their preconceived notions." -- Thomas Jefferson. The Atlantic author did some reasonable checking for the purported King quotation. "Searching Martin Luther King Jr. quote pages for the word "enemy" does not turn up this quote, only things that probably wouldn't go over nearly so well, like 'Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.' I'm pretty sure that this quote, too, is fake." For a book-length work on tracing quotations, which I bought years ago, see The Quote Sleuth. http://www.amazon.com/Quote-Sleuth-Manual-Tracer-Quotations/dp/0252016955 http://www.amazon.com/Quote-Sleuth-Manual-Tracer-Quotations/...

woodall 15y ago
I admit to posting that quote on my wall; for same. However, to try and make up for it I did a bit of research. Clarence Darrow is quoted as saying: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Sounds a lot alike?