Thursday, July 26, 2012
I Just Don't Enough Get Credit For This One
In January of 2011, I put a funny "quote" up from Abraham Lincoln about the dangers of trusting quotes you find on the Internet. Now I see from this posting at Classical Values that there are more than 165,000 uses of that quote! And almost none of them give me credit for it!
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That's because Abe Lincoln said it, not you. Duh! j/k ;-)
ReplyDeleteSome 16 years ago in an IRC chat, I wrote "pr0n" in reference to "porn", the usage of which now is commonplace. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing whether I was truly the origin of the term, or if someone else had thought of and used it first.
In your case, the quote you created and published has been used verbatim, so its provenance ought to be incontrovertible!
::G
::G I thought that was written that way to get around stupid filters.
ReplyDeleteAs for Lincoln's quote, I read where Thomas Jefferson said it!
I found a usage of it here, http://twitoaster.com/country-us/chrispirillo/the-trouble-with-quotes-on-the-internet-is-that-you-can-never-know-if-they-are-genuine-abraham-lincoln/ , dated Nov 9, 2010 if you can trust the internet :)
ReplyDeleteThat's curious. I wonder if I might have seen it somewhere and thought that it was original with me. Sometimes ideas pop up in your head, and you don't realize that you have seen them before.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar way, I coined the adage "Don't bite the Invisible Hand that feeds you." I've since seen that used by others. I think it's one of those obvious thoughts that occur to many.
ReplyDeleteI found the Abe Lincoln 'quote' on your blog and use it in my banner (here). Your Abe Lincoln idea was definitely funnier. I didn't realize you had coined it; I thought you were relaying it.
Don't feel bad, I recall a video that showed Jerry Lewis doing a skit followed by a clip of another comedian doing virtually the same skit some 10 years before. The video concluded with a very uncomfortable Jerry Lewis saying you don't always know where your jokes and inspiration come from.
ReplyDeleteI would also add that sometimes things come together, and several people will have the same idea at the same-ish time.
ReplyDeleteEvery so often, for example, a cartoonist will be accused of copying another, because his cartoon is essentially the same as the other's, but came out three weeks later--never mind that these things are often prepared months in advance!
Another example: two mathematicians, around the same time, developed calculus.
I don't know if that's what happened in this case, but whether it did or not, it's easy to see all these "quotes" from historical figures, and express the problem we have...and attribute it to someone who has, historically, have had lots of quotes attributed to him...let's see, who would be a good candidate?...I can't think of any particularly good person right now. Oh, I know! Abraham Lincoln! ;-)
In any case, whether it got lodged into your brain, or you made it up independently, it doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts, and it's fun to see that it's spreading around!