Misquotation
Misquotation (mis·quo·ta·tion) is either 1.the act of misquoting or 2.an instance or occasion of misquoting or of being misquoted. [1]
The first definition refers to getting the author or the content of a quotation wrong while making a quotation, such as attributing the opening lines of the Gettysburg Address to Andrew Johnson instead of Abraham Lincoln, which would be an instance of getting the author of the quote wrong. If Lincoln was correct cited as the author of the Gettysburg Address but the content of the opening lines was stated or cited wrongly, that would be a misquote of the content.
The second definition refers to a specific instance of misquotation, which the below sample sentence illustrates:
"Bob claimed "Money is evil" was a quote by Joe, but the actual quote by Joe was "Money can be evil".
In the sample sentence, the author of the quote is referenced correctly, but the quote content itself is cited wrongly by Bob, who misquoted what was actually said by Joe.
Misquotations
Many quotations are routinely incorrect or attributed to the wrong authors, and quotations from obscure or unknown writers are often attributed to far more famous writers. Examples of this are Winston Churchill, to whom many political quotations of uncertain origin are attributed, and Oscar Wilde, to whom anonymous humorous quotes are sometimes attributed.[2]
Deliberate misquotation is also common, though this often goes unnoticed, usually because the misquotation is better known or because the misquotation better fits a situation. For example, the Star Trek catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty" did not appear in that form in the original series—likewise, the famous Dirty Harry quotation "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" is actually a rewording of the original dialogue: "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?"
See also
- Adage
- Aphorism
- Block quotation
- Cliché
- Contextomy
- Epigram
- List of book titles taken from literature
- Maxim
- Metalanguage
- Musical quotation
- Nested quote
- Quotation
- Proverb
- Spin (public relations)
- Testimonial
- Use–mention distinction
Notes
- ^ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misquotation
- ^ See A Book of Misquotations, edited by Elizabeth Knowles, Oxford University Press, 2006.
External links
