Category: quotes

removing all doubt?

Tonight in my class we discussed, among other things, an article on the use of silence in Western Apache culture.* In this culture, people often remain silent in circumstances when people from mainstream American culture would be inclined to talk. Such situations include reunions of children returning from boarding schools with their parents, meetings of young couples who are courting, and meetings between strangers.

It may seem strange to think of people refraining to speak in these cases, but if you think about it, many cultures have a tendency to “fill the void” with idle chit chat. Talk about the the weather, or about near-meaningless nothings:

    A: So how’ve you been?
    B: Oh, fine. You?
    A: Not too bad.
    B: Good, good.
    A: So, um…uh…nice weather we’re having.
    B: Uh…yup. It’s warm out.
    A: Warmer than expected.
    B: Blah, blah, blah, blah, warm.
    A: Blah, blah, blah pants.
    B: Blah blah minotaur.

I couldn’t help but remember, or half remember, this saying:

    “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

Problem was, I couldn’t entirely remember the wording of it, or who said it. Apparently there’s a reason for this:

Searches on “better to keep your mouth closed” and “better to remain silent” (using the quotation marks in both cases) turned up numerous web pages, all offering different versions of the phrase. Some sources quoted the saying as “It’s far better…”, some substituted the words “stupid,” “ignorant,” or “simpleton” for the word “fool,” and still others twisted the saying into an almost unrecognizable form.

A page titled Mark Twain and the Mutating Quote attributed at least four variations of the same phrase to the eminently quotable Twain, explaining that it was a case of “split personality” that accounted for the variations, rather than a rash of misquotes.

Other pages suggested a number of other authors for the saying, including: Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Groucho Marx, Albert Einstein, and a mysterious figure named Silvan Engel.

Googling even came up with attributions to Confucius. Plus I’ve found stuff ending in “leave no doubt,” and even more variations.

So, to quote the wise/illustrious/immortal/venerable/witty and/or possibly fictitious Confucius/Twain/Lincoln/Eliot/
Marx/Einstein/Engel:

    “It’s (far)? better to ((remain|keep|stay) (silent|quiet)|(keep your mouth shut)) and be (thought|considered) a (fool|idiot|total dork) than to (speak|open your mouth|blather on) and (remove all|leave no room for) doubt.”

Ah, right. I’ll shut up now.

———————-
*Basso, K.H. 1972. “To give up on words: Silence in Apache culture.” In P.P. Giglioli, Ed. Language and Social Context. pp. 67-86.

crispy flakes of wisdom and crunchy nuggets of knowledge

One of the prize books in my collection is a book by none other than J. H. Kellogg, M.D. Yes, of corn flakes fame. Many have heard of this notable personage from the book The Road to Wellville by T. C. Boyle (and movie based on the same).

I stumbled across this book while browsing in a used book store in East Lansing, Michigan. (I was there for Linguistics Summer Camp.) Having heard of Kellogg, I was intrigued. And with a title like Plain Facts, and a publication date of 1882, I had to see what it was about. I opened the book to a page at random. And laughed out loud. I flipped through more pages, and laughed again. (snort, snicker…) I had to buy the book before I was thrown out.

It turns out that the “plain facts” are all about sex. As written by someone who felt that sex should be avoided whenever possible.

I don’t remember what the first passage I read was. But the beauty of this book is that nearly every page offers some piece of wisdom that I just couldn’t make up. I must share it with the world at large.

For example, we learn from page 87 that young women must not get their feet wet at certain times of the month, or they may do permanent damage:

A young lady who allows herself to get wet or chilled, or gets the feet wet, just prior to or during menstruation, runs the risk of imposing upon herself life-long injury.

Even babies may be in danger from the “stamp of vice,” as we learn from page 183:

Sometimes–rarely we hope–the helpless infant imbibes the essence of libidinous desires with its mother’s milk, and thence receives upon its forming brain the stamp of vice.

And not to leave out the dangers to men, there’s page 366, which offers this dire warning about the perils of auto-eroticism:

Many young men waste away and die of symptoms resembling consumption which are solely the result of the loathsome practice of self-abuse.

So I offer to you a game. Please give me a random (or carefully selected by whatever means you like) number between 1 and 512, and I will attempt to locate some notable nugget of wisdom for you in the vicinity of that page.

[Note: I’ll get back with the nuggets for you next Tuesday, April 10th.]