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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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