Dear Subscribers, I have received an equal number of emails saying
"Continue" & "Don't continue" with the thread on "spurious quotations,"
plus one noting that the original query didn't have a modern-day
political connotation but only asked about the accuracy & source of the
quotation. I propose that any discussion of quotations that anyone wants
to pursue continue but that we all resist the temptation to apply
quotations (accurate or not) to modern-day political issues. We all know
that comments about politics made in the eighteenth century or the early
nineteenth century can be affixed to a variety of modern-day views.

However, I would like to make a few comments about quotations.

(1) I doubt that most people today outside academic circles know what a
quotation is. Quoting accurately is a learned skill. My guess is that
most people think that a metaphrase or a paraphrase is a quotation. In
other words, they have an idea X & they believe that any words that in
their mind convey X constitute a quotation. I teach a couple of
2000-level classes (which I like quite a lot, but that's another
thread), & I can say with no ambiguity that a lot of my students have no
idea how to quote a source accurately. This makes me wonder whether the
sources in which the fabricated quotation attributed to Samuel Adams
were publications in which writers were committed to quoting in a way
that academics would consider legitimate. We can't always expect accuracy.

(2) For an example: I was a consultant a few years ago on a project to
create a public monument for an eighteenth-century personage. The
sculptor had planned for some quotations chiseled in the stone, but I
noticed that they were inaccurate. It was interesting insofar as the
sculptor in fact knew what a quotation is but he didn't know how to
check the accuracy of the ones he had. It's obvious that he had a poor
source but it's also part of a larger pattern of inaccurate quotations.

(3) For another example: in the area in which I try to research & write,
manuscripts were altered by editors & typesetters in the late eighteenth
century & early nineteenth century, then were often altered again for
modern anthologies or other editions. A small number are misattributed.
Often we're using a text that wasn't even an attempt at a metaphrase or
a paraphrase, never mind a quotation. The layers of varnish often go
back to the first publication.

(4) Some scholars today (outside the great documentary editions, the
excellence of which is astounding) try to analyze documents with as
little metaphrase or paraphrase as possible. Vincent Carretta comes to
mind. Another is Karen Weyler. I just read her new book, _Empowering
Words_, which has an interesting angle on what a document is & then what
a quotation is.

Cheers!
John Saillant
Western Michigan University

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