| J.T. Barnum recounts.. "a sucker is born every minute" You realize, of course, that quote is falsely attributed to P.T. Barnum. He didn't say that. |
just who WAS it then???
JT or PT?????
or maybe ET??
I can't tell if you're being incredulous as usual or really wanting a reply. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and make a stab at a serious answer.
I overlooked "J.T." as simply being a typo or honest mistake. Everyone's heard of Phineas Taylor Barnum. The words "There's a sucker born every minute" were not uttered by Barnum, though, but a man named David Hannum. Both Barnum and Hannum were hoaxed by a man named George Hull. Hull had a sculptor carve a giant out stone and buried it on an accomplice's farm. When Hull read in the newspaper about a local archaeological discovery, he ordered his accomplice to "discover" the petrified giant. Soon the "Cardiff Giant" as it came to be known was big news, and thousands came to see it for fifty cents per head. Hull was then able to sell a partial interest in it to Hannum for something like $30,000 which was in the 1860s a very large sum of money. Barnum wanted to buy it from Hannum, offering $50,000 (an even more astronomical sum) but Hannum refused. Barnum, in turn, requisitioned a giant of his own, and floated rumors to the press that Hannum had sold it, and that Hannum now had a fake copy. Hannum sued Barnum in court, when it came out that Hull had orchestrated the hoax from the beginning. The judge ruled that because Hannum's statue really was a fake, Barnum could not be held liable for slander.
Now, back to the subject at hand. I wish that when people have been shown a quote they're repeating is falsely attributed or taken out of context, that they'd be honest enough to admit the error. However, like the false Barnum quote, citations often take on a life of their own, and they get repeated and repeated over and over again. Spreading a falsified or quote ripped out a context can be an honest mistake. It happens if you don't check your attributions or go back to the original sources. However, it is when people continue to stand behind such falsified quotes despite having been shown the error, that I begin to doubt their honesty.