FAMOUS LINES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 1, 3 January 1927, Page 7

FAMOUS LINES

SUBJECT OF MISQUOTATION

COMMON USE OF REWARDED

PHRASES,

Recent discussion as to the original wording of Mrs. Malaprop's opinion of comparisons directs attention to the frequency with which the epigrammatic expressions of authors.are misquoted in everyday talk and writing, says the "New York Times." Advocates of absolute correctness shudder at the liberties taken with original texts' and the occasional resulting lapses into the ludicrous. Take for example Butler's famous lines: He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still, which are thus interpreted: "Convince a man against his will and he's of tho same opinion still, "or "Persuade a man againts his will," etc., which is not quite so meaningless, for although a man may. be persuaded against his will, he cannot be convinced. That quotations' from tho Bible should be mauled is surprising, but it is true. Here are a few: ■ Correct: "It is not good that man should be alone"; incorrect: "It is not good that a man should live alone." " . ' . Correct: "Bshold,' there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand "; incorrect: " A cloud no bigger than a man's'hand." Correct: "In the'multitude o£ counselors there is safety*'; incorrect: "In the multitude, of counselors there": is wisdom." ' .'..'■■' Correct: "There is no new thing under the sun"; incorrect: "There is nothing new under the sun." Correct: "That he may run that readeth it"; incorrect: "He that runs, may read." ''- Correct: "The labourer is worthy of his reward"; incorrect: "The labourer is worthy of his hire." A much-quoted line of Shakespeare's, "All that, glisters is not gold," has been rendered, "All is not gold that gutters," and "All that glitters is not g01d.".. Glisters evidently does not appeal, v • . . "The play's the thing," quoted'ofttimes with approval by critics, actually requires the succeeding sentence, "Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king," to complete its meaning.. "A. rose,by any other name would smell as sweet,'.' is really preceded by the, ■ words "That which we call," but it. is seldom used. ■ ; -. It is al remarkable fact that Shakespeare is. more misquoted ' than any other writer. "Though this be. madness,, yet there's method in it," becomes "there's method in his madness." "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, "is rendered, "Misfortune makes a , man acquainted with," etc.-; . ' "It's an ill'wind that blows nobody any good," is the general way in which Thomas Tusser, who lived in the sixteenth century, is misquoted. Tusser wrote:. " ..'•■■ Except wind stands • as ueverit' stood, It is an ill wind turns none to good. Lord Brooke wrote more than three hundred years go,'"And out of niinde: as soon as out of sight," which is: now reversed in "Out of sight is out of mind." "She and comparisons ~are: odious," wrote Dr. JohnODonne, ,and ho is variously interpreted.; . Even,' Ben. Johnson, speaking of Shakespeare's "small Latin and less Greek," has "little" substituted for "small." Milton's "human face divine" ' gets "form" for face, and/all" is adopted for "neighbouring" in the famous line, "the cynosure of neighbouring eyes." "The busy hum of men" in the same poet's "L'Allegro": has "haunts" for "hum;" "To prove conclusions orthodox:,V in Butler's "Hudibras," should bo; "Arid prove their doctrine orthodox, '.'., and "daggers-drawing" for '.'daggers drawn," by the same author. The fam-. ous couplet affecting the timorous" soldier runs thus: : Por -those that fly may fight again, Which ho can never do that's slain, also from ','Hudibras.", ..- \ John Morris,, 1657-17il, wrote "like angel's visits short arid bright," and Robert Blair, 1699-1746, had it "like 'those of angels short and far between,">and Thomas Campbell adopted the, sentiment in, "Pleasures of Hope" as '.'like angels' visits, few, and far between." The man who quotes generally says "like angels' visits, few and far-between." '..-'" ■ Matthew Prior's ."Pine by degrees, and beautifully less" gets "small" for "fine" and his "Virtue is her own reward" is always quoted with "its".for ''her.'' Addison's "The woman that deliberates is lost" is spoiled by "hesitates." Congreve's "Nor hell a'fury like a woman scorned" is misquoted as "hell has," etc. Pope's "A little learning • is' a dangerous thing" is given as "a little knowledge!" which renders it perhaps less ■ meaningful; and his "welcome the coming, speed the going guest.has the'more elegant "departing" in error. Young, in /his ."Love of Paine," writes: ' f' Where -Nature's end of language is declined,.. ..''.' : „-. " . ...... And men talk only to' conceall their " mind." ■ ' -i . - . This is misquoted in a Variety -. of ways. Gray's Elegy may ;live forever.; and erroneous quotations, too. "They kept tho noiseless, tenor of their way" is quoted by ninety-nine out of a hundred persons with "even tenor." Cbwper's "Variety is the very spice of life", invariably has the "very" omitted. Crabbe's "Be there a will, then wisdom finds a way" finds acceptance as "Where there's' a will there's a way." Burns's "some wee short hour" is enlarged to "the w;ee short hours"; Wordsworth's "the good die first" is given with "young" substituted for "first."Rabelais's "He looks*a gift horse in the mouth" changes into a command not to do it; Sterne's"They order, said I, this matter better in Prance" undergoes slight alteration in citation. '' One step "above the sublime makes the ridiculous" is found in Paine's "Age of Reason," and it is invariably bungled.: Paine was not original in this himself, having conveyed the sentence from Henri Esttlenne, who flourished a couple of hundred years before him. Napoleon thought so highly of it that he took it unto himself in "dv sublime an ridicule illy a qu-und pas." ' Rochefoucauld's "Hypocrisy" is a sort of homage that vice pays to virtue" is robbed of "a sort of" and iiouche's "It was worse than a crime it was a blunder" is condensed into "a blunder is worse than a crime." Lord Coke reported "They (corporations) cannot trespass nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have no souls," which is treated shamefully in adaptation, and Disraeli's "Everything comes if a maa' will o-xly wait" has been misquoted in a.dozen different ways. ;