Say What?

At 2 am this Sunday, we set our clocks ahead one hour. Blame for the biannual changing of the timepieces usually falls on farmers unless you ask one.

As daylight saving draws nigh, I think back to my time in Iowa. The week before the clock change, area TV stations would parade out the most Grant Wood looking farmer they could find. This old-timer would rant about how politicians were the ones messing with the clocks. Farmers are up and out before the sun no matter what time the grandfather clock shows -thus spake the curmudgeon Hawkeyes.

That memory turned the rusty cogs of this ol'cranium. Many things accepted as common knowledge are fallacious. Today's chapter: Inaccurate quotes.

This week marks the 131st anniversary of the publication in Strand Magazine of the first Sherlock Holmes' story, A Study in Scarlet. Despite it's mention in films and just about everything else Holmesian, in none of Arthur Conan Doyle's tales did the scientific sleuth utter the words, "Elementary, my dear Watson."

Another that has always nagged me is "far from the maddening crowd". Originally written by Thomas Gray's, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, the phrase is "far from the madding crowd" which is also the title of a Thomas Hardy novel. It's mostly used incorrectly.

The ninth most quoted person in Bartlett's is Alfred, Lord Tennyson. As a child, I read Charge of the Light Brigade over and over. Many are familiar with the words, "Ours is not the reason why; ours is but to do or die." (insert loud buzzer here) Wrong! The quote is: "Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die"

Now onto the movies and one of my favorite actors, Humphrey Bogart. Bogie impersonators' ubiquitous line is "Play it again, Sam." However, those words were not uttered in Casablanca. Rick says, "Play it for me. If she can stand to listen to it, I can. Play it."

Another Bogart classic, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, contains a classic misquote. Never does the bandit say the words, "We don't need no stinkin' badges." The actual lines are "We don't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you no stinking badges!"

There are many more examples. Why the misquotes? That question tickles my curiosity. In some cases, I believe, it's brevity. Take my Bogie examples. Both reduce several lines of script down to a few words. As for the literary examples, I blame that on people being lazy and quoting what they hear without knowing the actual work. As Mark Twain said, "A classic is something everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read."

An even more intriguing question is why do these misquotes bother me so. Is it a harmless eccentricity or a debilitating obsession? Eccentrics are happy with their behavior and don't want to change. Obsessives hate their behavior, but can't change it. I figure what, me worry! So I must be eccentric - as ever BB

"The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer." - Ken Kesey