We Quote, Unquote and uh... "Misquote"

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We Quote, Unquote and uh..."Misquote"

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Say Prof, what is the definition of history again? In my (small and dusty) dictionary it says and I quote: History\His"to*ry\[Latin: historia, Greek: 'istori`a, English: hysteria} - oops..

Funny things are happenning in Malaysian political scene today, the parliament which has always be theatrical, seems to be on a bend of political misquotations. I quote thee and you misquote him, and quote, unquote - trala : the Malaysian history text book is written.

To begin with, let me ahem, "quote" to you what Ambroce Bierce said about history,- "HISTORY - is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers most knaves and soldiers mostly fools".

Without getting into too much details let me give few examples; In 2006, Bush supporters had a gala quoting adventure by falsely quoting President Lincoln as advocating, exiling or hanging members of Congress who damage military morale in wartime.

The famous quote was that members of Congress who act to damage military morale in wartime "are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged!".

The electric charged words, dissapointingly were actually uttered by a remorseful J. Michael Waller a conservative scholar in a magazine interview in 2003. He told the magazine he was misquoted to have quoted Lincoln. So.... where does Lincoln come in?

Well, he doesn't, because he never propogated the idea of any subversions should be punished with exiles or death. Lincoln probably never thought about it and I bet, never even thought he would be falsely quoted on it either! Thank goodness it was corrected or Lincoln could have gone the history as the hononary founder of Guatanamo Bay!

But the upside the came out of it was that the little "misquote" became a favourite of Bush critics for his war policy on disloyalty and treason...and yes, we like to pick on it now and again.

Nevertheless, my favourite is a historical misquote by Nicholo Machiavelli - remember the famous "The end justifies the means"?

Well, the great philospher actually said "One must consider the final result". The one that we know now is a pretty liberal intepretation of the original isn't it. And come to think of it, it has a rather different meaning altogether!

And what about Marie Antoinnete's "S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu'ils mangent de la brioche!" (If they have no bread, let them eat cake!) - May we forgive ourselves for the bad-rep we gave her as the quote was actually written by Jean Jacque Rosseau (you dont say!) in his book call Confessions.

It was an unflattering and deregatory anti-royal propaganda obviously attributed to Queen Marie during a very dark and troubled time in French history. Because of those words Marie had supposedly said - further fueled an already serious and bloody revolution. Of course sadly for the sake of that revolution, her life had to end famously at the guillotine. Lament...lament...

How unexpected and curious it is that much of our knowledge of history owed from the misquotations of important individuals. Voltaire once said (a correct quote mind you), "History consists of series of accumulated imaginative inventions", I'm seeing where he's going with that.

Even now, some of the foundations of our opinions and current history that are still being written are influenced by the most rubbish misquotes...

(for some coverage on political misquotes, see here, here and here)