There are an awful lot of statements posted on the internet – particularly on Facebook – that are attributed to people who simply never said them. Often, these are statements that should be able to stand on their own merit, but the authors – in hopes of giving them increased credibility – feel compelled to claim they are quotes from from some respected figure.
In an entirely unscientific survey (I pulled the numbers out of thin air) I would estimate that the most misattributions are sayings claimed to be from Buddha, followed closely by Confucius, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and William Shakespeare. It would be interesting to see actual figures, but I doubt if it would affect the practice.
Many of these false quotes are original, but often they are words that could be correctly credited to one person but are incorrectly attributed to another. That’s how we get lines from a Shakespeare play attributed to Jesus Christ.
We often see obvious misattributions like Confucius saying A crowded elevator smells different to a midget that are meant to be humorous, but far too often misquotes and false attribution are the result of a lack of research or a serious attempt to mislead.
In the words of Groucho Marx – or was it Karl?- we see it all the time.
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