Beam Me Up, Scotty: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

* While it's certainly the message he wanted to convey, Yul Brynner did not say the exact phrase "I'm dead. Don't smoke," in his posthumous anti-smoking ad.

* It's a crude example, but the commercial never said "I'm Mr. Bucket. Put your balls in my mouth." It did come very close a few times, though.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'''s Ash never said "[[Memetic Mutation|Aim for]] [[New Rules as the Plot Demands|the horn!]]", he actually said "Pikachu! The horn!"

* ''[[Naruto]]'':

** Sasuke is commonly attributed with telling Sakura: "You're weak/useless." But actually he never said that. The closest comes when she asks him if they can go work on their teamwork, "just the two of us." And he responds with, "I swear, you're just as bad as Naruto. Instead of flirting, why don't you practice your jutsu and make the team stronger? Let's face it, you're actually worse than Naruto." He compliments her two chapters later to cheer her up. Also, while Sasuke does actually call Sakura annoying, it's usually taken widely out of context. The first time is right after she'd been talking bad about Naruto and Sasuke sticks up for him after she blames Naruto's attitude on his lack of parents. The second is when he is trying to leave the village, right after telling her he didn't remember that conversation, clearly proving he did remember it. Also he is always calling a Naruto a dobe (dead-last) like if it was his name also Naruto calls him "[[You Keep Using That Word|-teme]]" (a forceful way of saying you the equivalent of saying You BASTARD!)

** Tsunade and Jiraiya are always stated to call Naruto a Gaki/Brat. As well as the villagers calling him a Demon/Demon Brat/Fox Brat.

* In the dub of ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'', Eboshi says, "Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god." This has been misquoted as, "Now I will show you how to kill a god."

* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'':

** Japan never said "Please leave, you second rate perverts." What he actually said was "Leave the [[Hentai|2-D]] to me," but the scanlators didn't understand the sentence.

** Russia never referred to himself as ''Mother'' Russia. Hint: ''him''self.

** And Prussia's famous [[Gag Penis|"five meters"]]? 100% pure [[Fanon]].

** There has never been a moment in the whole series when America has called England 'Iggy'.

* The original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'':

** During the infamous [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|Bright Slap]] scene, Amuro did say "Not even my father hit me!" But most people would think that the full quote is "You hit me! Not even my father hit me!" even if what Amuro said was (after the SECOND slap from Bright), "That's twice...! [[Rule of Three|Not even my father hit me!]]"

** Also in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'', when Graham declared his [[Cargo Ship|love]] with Gundam, he didn't say the memetically popular "GUNDAM, I LOVE YOU!!!", but "This feeling... there's no mistaking it... it must be love!!". But since the first one explicitly declared just WHAT Graham is in love with, it became more popular and oft-used.

 

== Comic Books ==

 

== Films ==

** The shortened version was the way the line appeared in the trailer, which people likely saw much more frequently than the movie.

* Rorschach lines from the opening monologue of ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'' is often misquoted (thanks to the trailer) as "...and the world will look up and shout 'Save us!'... and I'll whisper 'no.'" The line in the actual film is: "All the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' and I'll whisper 'No.'", but it was slightly censored for the [[Never Trust a Trailer|trailer]]. The original line is slightly different: "[A]nd I'll look down and whisper 'No.'"

'''Rick:''' You played it for her, you can play it for me!

'''Sam:''' ''[lying]'' Well, I don't think I can remember...

{{quote|'''Darth Vader:''' Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.

'''Luke:''' He told me enough! He told me ''you'' killed him!

:* The first title card always reads "''A long time ago'' in a galaxy far, far away...." "Long, long ago" is seen in the inside cover of a few novels, but never in the films.

:* Yoda never did say "There is no try, only do." The actual line is "Do or do not. There is no try."

** In the stage version, though, it's "You're going out ''there'' a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!", so that technically is a correct quote...

* It's sometimes claimed that in ''[[Bride of the Monster]]'', [[Bela Lugosi]] said his manservant Lobo (Tor Johnson) was "as harmless as kitchen" [sic] as a sign of his diminished faculties and/or Wood's incompetent direction. But actually, he says the line fine: "Don't be afraid of Lobo; he's as gentle as a kitten."

** It is, however, present in the Universal Studios water show based on the movie, which has been seen by many more people.

* [[Bram Stoker]]'s original ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'' never said the line "[[Vampire Vords|I vont to suck your blood!]]", or anything like it. He was much too sophisticated, and had an English accent. It wasn't until Bela Lugosi played Dracula that the accent became forever rooted in our memory, but even then, the line is not spoken.

* [[Tarzan]] never said "Me, Tarzan. You, Jane." Johnny Weissmueller, star of a series of Tarzan movies, gave the phrase in an interview as an indication of the ''kind'' of dialogue he was being given, but even he didn't say that exact phrase in any of the movies. This was probably paraphrased from a scene from the 1932 ''Tarzan, the Ape Man'':

{{quote|'''Jane:''' (pointing to herself) Jane.

*** A commercial for jewelry store Jared ''[[Averted Trope|does get it right]]'' when a man's female-voiced GPS receiver acts like HAL when she detects jewelry in the car.

** And as if there weren't enough misquotations, the line, "Good morning Dave" is never uttered. "Good '''evening''' Dave" and "Good '''afternoon gentlemen'''" on the other hand are.

** There is a line much closer to this from a classic Western, though not one with [[John Wayne]]: Alan Ladd says "A man's gotta be what a man's gotta be" in ''[[Shane]]''.

* ''[[The Treasure of the Sierra Madre]]'' never featured the line "We don't need no stinking badges!" The actual lines are:

'''Bandit:''' Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges! }}

:* That said, if someone says, "We don't need no stinking badges!" they ''are'' quoting a movie: ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''.

:* Another one -- Bogart never says "Can you help a fellow American who's down on his luck?" That's from the [[Bugs Bunny]] cartoon short ''8 Ball Bunny''. The actual line is: "Say, mister, care to stake a fellow American to a meal?"

* Nor did [[Cary Grant]] ever say "Judy, Judy, Judy". Apparently, comedian Larry Storch was doing a Cary Grant impersonation in a nightclub when [[Judy Garland]] walked in. He greeted her from the stage in character and it somehow became part of the Grant mystique, mystifying even Cary, himself.

** In an acceptance speech for the American Film Institute's lifetime achievement award, Cagney ribbed impressionist Frank Gorshin (and poked fun at the often misattributed line) by saying "And, Frank, I never said 'Mmm, you dirty rat.' What I really said was 'Judy, Judy, Judy!'"

** Mae West didn't say "Is that a gun in your pocket [[Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?]]?" in any film. It's sometimes said to be in ''She Done Him Wrong'', but actually she said it in [[Real Life]] to a policeman who was escorting her.

{{quote|Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards... and in high heels.}}

* Smith's monologue in ''[[The Matrix]]'' is often misquoted: "Human beings are a virus," or "Human beings are a disease, and we are the cure." Agent Smith's speech patterns make it easy to misquote.

* Classic Western ''The Virginian'': Gary Cooper's taunting line was not, "Smile when you call me that!" or "When ya call me that, smile!" but "If you wanna call me that, smile." Easy to get confused, because in the original novel, he says "When you call me that -- ''smile''!"

* An inversion: sometimes Greta Garbo's quote "I want to be alone" is said to have never been said, or to have only been used in an interview. But it actually does appear in one of her movies: ''[[Grand Hotel]]''.

* [[Alfred Hitchcock]] is supposed to have said, "Actors are cattle." However, as he himself put it, "What I said was that all actors should be ''treated'' like cattle." He corrected himself after Carole Lombard, hearing him make the comment on the set of ''[[Mr. and Mrs. Smith]]'', set up an actual stable in the middle of the shooting set and put cattle in it with signs around the necks of the animals with the actors names on them.

* In ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'', Mr. Freeze utters dozens of ice- and snow-related puns. "Ice to meet you" is not one of them. The line "Ice to ''see'' you" was previously used by McBain in a spoof of [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]]'s action films in ''[[The Simpsons]]''. And that line never appeared in the movie itself or the trailer.

* The Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan's ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' is often mis-quoted as asking "Do I look like a man with a plan?", when Harvey Dent says that {{spoiler|his (Harvey's) disfigurement and the death of Rachel Dawes}} was part of his (the Joker's) plan, most likely because people associate the rhyming words "man" and "plan". The quote is, however: "Do I really look like a guy with a plan?"

* In the 1989 ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'' movie, Batman does this in the movie: when Jack Napier kills his parents at the beginning, he asks young Bruce Wayne if he's ever danced with the devil BY the pale moonlight. Later on when Batman confronts Joker (Napier), he asks him if he's ever danced with the devil IN the pale moonlight. Even [[IMDb]] misses this one for some reason, but "by" and "in" are interchanged in the otherwise identical statements.

* Not a quote, but the image of Macaulay Culkin with his hands to his cheeks, screaming, isn't because he has realized he has been left ''[[Home Alone]]'', but because he has stung himself with aftershave. The false image comes from a trailer where the commentary mentions his being left home... alone, and then the hand-on-face scream bit.

** It doesn't help that the posters for the movie have him front and center, doing the hand-on-face scream (and wearing a sweater as opposed to a bath towel) with Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern grinning in a menacing fashion behind him.

:* In an example that's made its way into a trope name, [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face]] is actually "Aw man... I shot Marvin in the face..." with no "just"

* In ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'', the line is "'''You're''' gonna need a bigger boat.", not "We're gonna need a bigger boat." The fact that Brody (the speaker) is on the boat as well undoubtedly contributes to the confusion.

* ''[[Zulu]]'': the line isn't "Zulus. Thousands of 'em.", but "The sentries report Zulus '''to the south west'''. Thousands of '''them'''." Also, [[Michael Caine]] (Lt. Bromhead) doesn't say it; it's Color Sergeant Bourne, played by Nigel Greene.

* Scarlett O'Hara says "Tomorrow '''is''' another day", not "Tomorrow's another day" at the end of ''[[Gone with the Wind]]''.

:* Éomer also shouts, "Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!" in the middle of the battle after he goes berserk after seeing his sister dead (or so he thinks) and the Rohirrim cry "Death" as with one voice. The movie moves these lines to the start of the battle.

:* Aragorn's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Crowning Speech Of Awesome]] is often abridged and misquoted, mostly because of the ''Return of the King'' trailer. Ask any layman on the street what the speech was, and most who claim to remember will say "I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! Someday, the courage of men may fail, but it is not this day! This day, ''we fight!''" The actual speech is: "Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see, in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day... an hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is ''not this day!'' This day, we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, ''stand''! '''''[[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|Men! Of! The West!]]'''''

* The line "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!" is a misquote of Dorothy's line in ''[[The Wizard of Oz (film)|The Wizard of Oz]]''. The actual quote is "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

** The Wicked Witch says "Fly, fly, fly!", not "Fly, my pretties! Fly!" or "Fly, my monkeys, fly!"

** Dorothy (nor anyone else) does not say "It's a twister, Auntie Em". One of the farm hands, Hunk (the "real life" counterpart of the Scarecrow) does say "It's a twister! It's a twister!"

** Such as in ''[[Angels in America]]'' when Prior is having self-deprecating dream.

* Looking for the iconic [[Marilyn Monroe]] [[Marilyn Maneuver|shot with the subway wind blowing up her skirt?]] You won't find it in ''[[The Seven Year Itch]]'', it shows only her legs and reaction shots. The full-length picture appears only in publicity and posters.

* ''[[The Godfather]]'' doesn't say "You come to me, on the day of my daughter's wedding?" He says "You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder - for money." The phrase "day of your daughter's wedding" is used later, but not by Vito.

** Also—this is a slightly nitpicky one, but that's what we're here for—at the beginning, Michael tells Kay that "Luca Brasi put a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract." "Brains" and "signature" are often transposed—presumably people think it [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|packs more of a punch if the horrible option comes last]], but that just ain't the way it is.

** Also, an example less of wording and more of intonation: "Help meeee!" is often done high pitched in parodies such as ''[[Beetlejuice]]''. In the original movie, however, it was more of a deep, nasal sound, like an insect buzzing.

* In ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'', the Black Knight's most memorable quote is [[Only a Flesh Wound|"It's only a flesh wound!"]] and has even been merchandised as such when he really said [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4 "Just a flesh wound."] The misquotation is possibly influenced by the scene where the knights first see Camelot and one of the servants remarks [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGAYk5VWkTw "It's only a model."] Additionally, the Black Knight does not make the "flesh wound" comment until ''both'' of his arms have been cut off and Arthur points it out. What he says after Arthur slices off his first arm is, "'Tis but a scratch."

* Discussed in ''[[Frost/Nixon]]''. Frost is known for starting his broadcasts by saying "Hello, good evening and welcome," but, according to Frost, "I don't actually say that." In broadcasts shown within the film, he says "Hello. Good Evening." and "Good evening and welcome," but never says all three at once.

* And, of course, [[Forrest Gump]] never said "I love you Jenny". But he did say (after trying to rescue her from the guys grabbing her on stage) "I can't help it. I love you".

'''Lazarus:''' You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn. 2001, ''[[I Am Sam]]''? Remember? Went full retard, went home empty-handed. }}

* [[Will Smith]]'s character in ''[[Independence Day]]'' never said "Welcome to ''Earf''!", despite what the [[Memetic Mutation|Internet]] would like you to believe. He actually said the word "Earth" correctly.

 

== Literature ==

** It's not [http://unspeak.net/ unspeak] either.

** Misquoting Orwell is [[Future Slang|doubleplusungood]].

* In Spanish-speaking countries, it is very common to attribute to ''[[Don Quixote]]'' the expression ''"Ladran, Sancho, señal que cabalgamos"'' ''("There's barking, Sancho, it shows that we're riding")''—in other words, to succeed, one has to face criticism from envious people. This is an abbreviated version of the following exchange:

{{quote|'''Sancho:''' Señor, señor, que nos ladran los perros.

{{quote|'''Sancho:''' Sir, sir, that dogs bark at us.

'''Don Quijote:''' A sign that we ride, Sancho. }}

{{quote|''Don Quixote took the lead, and having gone a matter of two hundred paces he came upon the mass that produced the shade, and found it was a great tower, and then he perceived that the building in question was no palace, but the chief church of the town, and said he,''' "It's the church we have lit upon, Sancho.'''"''}}

* The title line from [[John Donne]]'s "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is often misquoted as "Ask not for whom the bell tolls", though it is actually "And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls".

* In [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]'', if your snark turns out to be a boojum, "You will softly and '''suddenly''' vanish away, / And never be met with again." Not "softly and ''silently''", as generally misquoted.

** Also, there is no "Mad Hatter" in the book, only a "Hatter" who is mentioned as being mad.

** Ironically, in the book it can be argued, judging from the [[Starfish Aliens|appearance of the Martians themselves]], that Ogilvy was actually ''right'' when he said that.

* The expression "survival of the fittest" generally is attributed to [[Charles Darwin]], but it was actually [[wikipedia:Survival of the fittest|coined by Herbert Spencer]]. Note that the phrase almost always is used incorrectly: "the fittest" does not mean "the strongest individual". A much more accurate paraphrase is "the individual or trait that ''fits the best'' within a particular environment". (This use of "fittest" is no longer common in modern English.)

* ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'''s Ebeneezer Scrooge is often observed as having said "Bah-humbug!", but most works miss the emphasis. The phrase is given like it's all one word, whereas "Bah" is actually an interjection of disgust, e.g. "Bah! Humbug!"

** And in film and stage adaptations, he tends to say it many more times than in the novel.

{{quote|To many people [[Victorian Britain]] wit and humour is summed up by ''Punch'', when every joke is supposed to end with "Collapse of Stout Party", though this phrase tends to be as elusive as "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the Sherlock Holmes sagas.}}

* In Lewis Carroll's poem ''Jabberwocky'', the nonsense word "borogoves" is often mispronounced "borog'''r'''oves."

* William Cowper's ''Light Shining Out Of Darkness'': "God moves in '''a''' mysterious way", not "God moves in mysterious ways"

* Tennyson's ''The Charge of the Light Brigade'' includes the following lines: "Theirs is not to make reply, / Theirs is not to reason why, / Theirs is but to do & die [...]" At varying points you will see "Ours" exchanged for "Theirs," which is reasonably justifiable, but to use the line "Theirs (or Ours) is but to do OR die" should merit flogging, at the least.

* [[Philippines|José Rizal]]'s poem popularly known as ''Mi Ultimo Adiós'' was originally untitled. The title was added posthumously, and the phrase itself nowhere appears in the text.

* [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] is variously quoted as writing something like "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back", or a myriad of variations. The original phrase used by Nietzsche in ''Beyond Good and Evil'' is: "And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* From ''[[Star Trek]]'' (apart from the [[Trope Namer]], above):

** While we're talking Scotty, he has likely never said ''"She canna' take much more of this!"'' onscreen. It's in the theatrical trailer of ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country|Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country]]'' but was cut from the version seen in theaters.

*** [[Ascended Meme|The Borg do say the exact construction in the Arcade light-gun game of the series.]]

** Bones never said "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a --" He said "[[I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder|I'm a doctor, not a --]]" and similar phrases very often though: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVhcB9ucmdg see here]

** Spock never said the line "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it," which is used repeatedly in the song "Star Trekkin'." He does say something similar in "The Devil In The Dark":

{{quote|Within range of our sensors, '''there is no life''', other than the accountable human residents of this colony beneath the surface. '''At least, no life as we know it'''.}}

:* A small scale ''Star Trek'' Beam Me Up, Scotty occurred among the cast and crew of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''. Apparently they were under the impression that the Original Series episode "This Side Of Paradise" contained the line "I'm not going back, Jim". The line became an in joke and they even used it in the riffing on [[Touch of Satan]]. However, they later rented the episode and realized that no such line appears.

* On ''[[The Burns and Allen Show]]'' Gracie Allen doesn't reply "Goodnight, Gracie" to [[George Burns]]' "Say goodnight, Gracie".

** The phrase WAS sometimes said by Mr. Hands, who was the narrator in the shorts.

{{quote|(In a short with Mr Bill driving a car) ''Mr Hands'' : Oh no, Mr Bill! Looks like you have a flat! Good thing Mr Sluggo has a jack....}}

* Australian talk show host Derryn Hynch never actually used the line "Shame, shame." he is often associated with, it comes from Steve Vizard's recurring impersonation of him on sketch comedy ''Fast Forward''.

* The (in)famous Bishop and the Nightie" affair on ''[[The Late Late Show]]'' never had a woman say she was "naked" on her wedding night. In February 1966, there was a segment on the show where a Mr and Mrs Fox had to answer questions about their marriage; Mrs Fox was asked what colour nightdress she wore on her wedding night; she said "Transparent," then admitted "I didn't wear any!"; after the audience stopped laughing, she changed her answer to "white." There was no outcry—only three phone complaints, and one telegram from Thomas Ryan, Catholic Bishop of Clonfert (''"Disgusted with disgraceful performance."''), who later offered extreme criticism of the show, calling on "all decent Irish Catholics" to protest. They didn't.

* The German crime series ''[[wikipedia:Derrick (TV series)|Derrick]]'' often has Derrick send his assistant Harry to get the car to drive him somewhere. Thus, the phrase "Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen" ("Harry, go get the car in the meantime") was coined, though none of the 281 episodes of the legendary show actually featured the renowned phrase. The line was finally included in a tongue-in-cheek animated special made after the live action version had been cancelled.

* A popular trend in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' fanfiction is to have O'Neill call artifacts "rocks" while Daniel insists that they are "artifacts". However, such an exchange never occurs in the show itself.

* The show ''[[Friends]]'' has maybe one actual occasion where Chandler uses any variant of the phrase "Could I ''be'' more (blank)?" without it being a parody of said speaking pattern.

** "I don't talk like that. That is so ''not'' true. ...That is ''so'' not...that is so ''not''...oh, shut up!"

* The Robot from ''[[Lost in Space]]'' never said "Danger, danger, Will Robinson".

** That's because the catch phrase has only one "danger". It was said once in the series, episode 11 of season 3 ("The Deadliest of the Species").

* No [[Game Show]] has ever used the phrase "Johnny, tell them what they've won!" There have been several [[The Announcer|announcers]] named Johnny (Johnny Gilbert, Johnny Olson, Johnny Jacobs, John Harlan), and they have told countless contestants about the prizes, but never in this form.

* Speaking of game shows, the catch phrase on ''[[Family Feud]]'' is "(our) survey ''said''," not "says" (although Steve Harvey sometimes uses "says"). And it's only used in the [[Bonus Round|Fast Money]] round, not the main game. Ricki Lake got the latter wrong on ''Gameshow Marathon''.

** Also, the first line of the show's opening theme song is "It's a beautiful day in '''this''' neighborhood. It is often misquoted as "...in '''the''' neighborhood", and is even sung that way in the theme to the new [[Spinoff Babies|spinoff]] ''Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood''.

* The [[Trope Namer]] is subject to [[Conversational Troping]] (naturally, by Reid, the show's usual source of random trivia) in the ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' episode "What Happens At Home".

** A straight example is in the finale. Hawkeye does not actually say "It wasn't a chicken!"

* Most people believed that [[Barney and Friends]] said the message, "A stranger is a friend you haven't met." He never actually said that! Not once. The closest anyone's ever come to saying that lin, was in "Playing It Safe!" In the episode, it was ''Derek'' who uttered, "Strangers are people you don't know."

* Despite naming [[Recruit Teenagers with Attitude|a trope in its own right,]] the phrase "Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude" never appeared in ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]].'' What Zordon actually said was that he wanted "Five overbearing and overemotional humans," to which Alpha replied "Not that, not ''teenagers!''" That line '''was''' used in the introduction and theme song, however it was only a shortened version of the actual dialogue.

* A milder version in ''[[The Sopranos]]'': the characters rarely, if ever, spoke of a person getting "whacked"; the preferred term was "clipped".

* ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' has a mild example. While Robin's infamous "Holy [relevant phrase]!" [[Catch Phrase]] ''did'' appear constantly, he usually ended it at that—he rarely ever said "Holy [relevant phrase], Batman!", as most people quote him. This one's a [[Justified Trope|justified]] case, though, since "Holy [noun]!" is such a generic phrase in Western culture that people might not otherwise associate it with ''Batman''.

 

== Music ==

* [[John Lennon]] never said that [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] were "[[Bigger Than Jesus]]," it was:

{{quote|"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. We're '''more popular than Jesus''' now - I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."}}

* In an overlap with [[Refrain From Assuming]], the German national anthem is still known in the Anglosphere as "Deutschland Über Alles", despite the verse featuring those lyrics no longer being officially part of the song (whose melody is also [[Older Than They Think]]). For the record, the current first line is ''Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit'': "Unity and Right and Freedom".

** And even "Deutschland Über Alles" wasn't a call for Germany to dominate the world, but a call for the citizens of the [[All the Little Germanies|many small countries that made up the region pre-1870]] to and regard the ideal of a united Germany as far more important than rivalries between Bavarians, Prussians, Austrians, Saxons, Württembergers, Hanoverians and so on.

* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] references a common use of this trope in his song "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me": "And by the way, your quotes from 'George Carlin' aren't really [[George Carlin]]..."

* The song that in which "Figaro" [[Department of Redundancy Department|repeatedly sings]] [["I Am" Song|his name]] comes from ''[[The Barber of Seville]]''. Some people, however, will perceive it as being from ''[[The Marriage of Figaro]]''.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* An [[Iconic Item]] for an entire ''genre'': There was no such thing as a ''secret decoder ring'' for cereal boxes, [[Radio Drama|old-time radio shows]] or anything else. The idea is a mashup of secret decoder badges (which weren't rings because it's hard to fit the alphabet on a ring) and secret compartment rings. ''After'' the end of old-time radio drama, some companies did offer such rings as a form of nostalgia, including Ovaltine in 2000.

** This is partly just a matter of a misnomer, since a popular style of decoder was the cypher disk, consisting of one or more circular plates with letters printed around the circumference. These plates are occasionally described as rings.

 

== Religious Scripture ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''Star Trek: The Game'', one of the trivia questions is to name an episode in which Kirk said the exact phrase "Beam me up, Scotty." It is a trick question and if the player names an episode, the player's ship loses an engine.

 

 

* In ''East Lynne'', Lady Isabel does not say, "Dead -- and never called me mother!" (This would be erroneous, since "Mother" ''is'' her son's last word as he dies in her arms.) The actual line in the play is, "See here -- my child is dead! and never knew that I was his mother." (The novel that the play was based on had no similar line; neither did a different stage adaptation.)

** The misquote was popularised by ''[[The Goon Show]]'' which used it as a [[Running Gag]]; in one episode Neddie Seagoon actually calls it "an exerpt from ''East Lynne''".

** It doesn't help that parodists often distort the line further, to "Confidentially, ''this'' stinks!"

* Not once in ''[[Gypsy]]'' is June and Louise's mother called "Momma Rose."

** While a lower-grade, more obscure variant, Rose never accused Raiden of having a room that was 'empty like your soul' in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]''. The misquote was popularised by the webcomic ''[[VG Cats]]'' and is quoted more often than the (not quite as stupid) real line, "A lifeless room...almost like your empty heart."

** Another, much more common ''[[Metal Gear]]'' misquote is "Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAKE!!!", which never actually happens in any of the games when you get a [[Game Over]]. Instead, it's things like "Snake, what happened? Snake? SNAAAAAAAKE!", which of course gets the same idea across, but isn't just "SNAKE" three times.

* "[[Welcome to Corneria]]" from ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'', while the original line in ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'' was "Coneria, the city of dreams" (also note there is only one r, thought that's more a case of [[Spell My Name with an "S"]]).

* ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'':

* Coach from ''[[Left 4 Dead]] 2'' is commonly viewed as someone who is not only obsessed with chocolate, due to him eating a chocolate bar in the intro and Nick teasing Coach about the escape chopper being made of chocolate. Coach never makes any reference to chocolate at all in the game. This is probably due to his visual similarities to Doc Louis from [[Punch-Out!!]]. In the Wii version Doc IS obsessed with chocolate. From the first game, on this very wiki one could find ten different versions of Bill's "if I start to turn" speech from the elevator in No Mercy. And all of them would be wrong. Oddly enough, they also always correctly write Francis' response.

* Azuria, the Atlas Park magical contact in ''[[City of Heroes]]'', has a reputation for allowing anyone to walk into the MAGI (in essence, the generic magical government agency) vault. She is not even in charge of the vault; that's her counterpart in Galaxy City. She is commonly the dropoff for magical storyarcs, though.

* {{spoiler|Adachi}} from ''[[Persona 4]]'' is often associated with the phrase "Bitches and Whores", though he never said it once in the game. However that ''does'' pretty much sum up his opinion on girls.

** [[Ascended Meme|he does say it in the]] [[Anime of the Game]] though.

* The famous line from ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', "They can't grab me if I'm on fire," is meant to refer to ninjas, so it is commonly quoted as "Ninjas can't grab me if I'm on fire," [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|which does make a little sense.]]

** "Ninjas can't '''catch''' me etc" is also a very common permuation of the line.

* There's quite a lot of this in the ''[[Homestuck]]'' fandom. Karkat's solitary use of the term "fuckass" is wildly exaggerated by fans unable to duplicate the more florid profanity he favours in story, and use of the ''[[Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff|SBaHJ]]''-[[Rouge Angles of Satin|isms]] "jegus" and "gog" by any character is through the roof, depite being respectively used sparingly and exactly once in canon.

** ''[[Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff]]'' itself isn't immune - its [[First Installment Wins|most famous lines]], those of the stairs comic, are frequently mishandled in quotation. Frequently, a "the" or "them" is added to "I WARNED YOU ABOUT STAIRS BRO!!!!", and the "bro" is muddled with the similar terms "dog" and "man" also used in it. It's actually pretty rare to see it (or anything else from ''[[S Ba HJ]]'') quoted accurately.

* Two episodes of ''[[Family Guy]]'' spoof Apache Chief from the ''[[Superfriends]]'' shouting "Apache Chief! Ee! Nay! Chuck!" to activate his powers. The phrase he actually used to activate his powers is variously written as "Inukchuk," "Inyuk-Chuk," "Inekchuk" or something similar, depending on where you looked (they weren't very big on details on ''[[Superfriends]]'', so you pretty much have to pick it up phonetically) but he clearly doesn't pause as distinctly between the first two syllables of his phrase as ''Family Guy'' suggests, and never says his own name before doing it.

** It's worse than you think - the word is Inukshuk (ee-nook-shook) and it's ''Inuit'', not Apache. As an adjective, it means "In man shape," which could apply to Apache Chief; as a noun, it's a stone structure in roughly human form used as a sort of northern Kilroy Was Here (also indicating a relatively safe harbour). Geological cultural graffiti turned heroic catch phrase.

* A [[Memetic Mutation]] has a screenshot of Superman from ''[[Superman/Batman: Apocalypse]]'' (usually edited to have the features of another character, with [[Uncanny Valley|disturbing]] results) with the caption "[name], I..." In the movie, Superman does not actually say that line, he is instead saying "She is my cousin".

* The words "not three little pigs" are not actually said in Disney's ''[[Three Little Pigs]]'' cartoon. The last line is just straight instrumental.

** He wrote something similar in a letter: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."

* [[Genghis Khan]] never actually said [[Conan the Barbarian|"Crush your enemies! See them driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women."]] His actual quote was much more verbose and went into detail about [[Really Gets Around|the women part]].

** ''Apres moi, le deluge'' was also chosen as the squadron motto of the Royal Air Force 617 Squadron, the famous Dambusters, in reference to their famous raid, and they cited Louis XIV as the source. They naturally meant it [[Kill It with Water|rather more literally]].

* When portrayed in fiction, [[Richard Nixon]] will almost invariably assure anyone listening that he is not a crook. While Nixon actually did say "I am not a crook" it was actually part of a larger speech and not a standalone sentence like it's usually shown.

** "I am not a crook" has always been how that part of the speech has been quoted in anything making fun of Nixon during Watergate and after. However, the then-president used a contraction, the relevant part of the speech going: "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

* Nathan Bedford Forest never said "git thar fustest with the mostest" he said the essence of strategy was "to git thar fust with the most men."

* Confederate [[The American Civil War|Civil War]] General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson is often said to have gained his nickname by General Barnard Bee saying at the First Battle of Manassas (also called the First Battle of Bull Run): "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally around the Virginians!" However, some accounts have Bee saying, "Why is Jackson standing there like a damned stone wall?". No one was able to ask him later, as he died that afternoon.

** In fact, Her Majesty once wrote in her diary "We are VERY MUCH amused!" Yes, with those capitals.

** She did once say something similar - to a courtier who was telling a dirty joke in the presence of a group of young children. And she wasn't using the "royal we", by "we are not amused", she meant "The courtiers and I are not amused." The idea that she was constantly gloomy comes both from the fact that she spent many years in mourning after her husband died and from the fact that having one's picture taken was considered a very serious matter, and people normally didn't smile in photos (Beyond decorum, photographic plates of that era required a ''very'' long exposure. A good photograph required a pose and expression that the subject could hold for long periods). Even then there are more pictures of Victoria laughing than of all nine of her children combined.

* "I have seen the future, and it works." derives from Lincoln Steffens' 1921 statement on the Soviet Union: "I have been over into the future, and it works."

* [[Abraham Lincoln]] never said, "As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." The quote was published 20 years after Honest Abe's death, and his secretary immediately denounced it as a fraud. But it was used a lot in the 1896 presidential election, and came to be seen as fact.

* A.E. Housman never wrote: "We were soldiers once, and young", or even anything closely approximating it.

* There's no record of [[George Orwell]] saying, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." The closest thing he actually wrote was: "Those who 'abjure' violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."

** Churchill also never said "We shall fight '''them''' on the beaches", it was:

{{quote|I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. Even though large parts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, '''we shall fight on the beaches''', we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.}}

{{quote|"The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea."}}

:* Also, someone once wrote to ''The Strand'' magazine complaining that someone had ended a sentence with a preposition. Somebody commented in reply, ''"This is nonsense up with which I will not put,"'' often attributed to Churchill but it almost certainly wasn't him. This misattribution may originally owe to the simple expedient that the kind of [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]] who still insists on following this "rule" ''decades'' after it was thoroughly discredited as an artificial construct with less bearing on how English is actually used than Japanese verb conjugation would be more swayed by a sentence constructed to prove its absurdity if it comes from someone known for eloquent, moving speeches than from some random person writing to a magazine.

::* "An empty car pulled up in front of Downing Street this morning, and Clement Attlee got out."

:* In Germany, the quote "I'll never believe in a statistic I haven't forged myself" or paraphrases thereof is almost always associated with Churchill, and many Germans react surprised when Anglophones have never heard of it. That's because that line was attributed to Churchill by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, in an attempt to downplay casualty reports broadcasted to Germany by the BBC. This background faded out of public consciousness, and today it's often cited to emphasize the arbitrariness of statistics, similar to Twains "Lies, damned lies and statistics". That the snarkiness of the quote actually fit with Churchill's public perception probably helped.

* The Duke of Wellington did not describe the Battle of Waterloo as "A damn close run thing", but as "a damn nice thing-the nearest run thing you ever saw."

** Which, as anyone who has read ''[[Good Omens]]'' will know, is probably using "nice" in its less well-known sense of "requiring great precision".

** The real quote went instead: "Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"

** Also, Hitler never held the speech at all. Goebbels did.

 

== Real Life -- Sports ==

:* Caine did, however, say "Not many people know that" in ''[[Educating Rita]]'', but that was an [[Actor Allusion|in-joke]] because everyone ''thought'' he said it.

* Similarly "And... why not?" wasn't originally said by Barry Norman, but from impressions of him on ''[[Spitting Image]]''.

* Jim Lovell never said, "Houston, we have a problem" during ''[[Apollo 13]]''. The actual line is "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." The misquote is so pervasive, it has even made its way into the movie starring [[Tom Hanks]], which has been noted for being fairly accurate.

** Jack Swigert actually said that line. Lovell followed with "Houston, WE'VE HAD a problem," which was actually misquoted intentionally by NASA in the years since because it sounds better, so the movie can only be held accountable for following NASA's [[Retcon]].

** The popularity of the phrase may have also come from [[Gilbert Gottfried]]'s impression of Seinfeld.

* Popular belief holds that [[Columbine]] High School shooting survivor Cassie Bernall was confronted by the killers if she believed in God, and said "yes" in response. Harris had actually confronted another survivor, Valeen Schurr, with this question, after she supposedly yelled out "Oh God," but she didn't even say yes—her actual words were "No--yes--no ... ?" Which caused Harris to laugh and walk away.

* [[The Barnum|P.T. Barnum]] did not coin the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute." The phrase was first said by David Hannum, a con man who exploited George Hull's [[wikipedia:Cardiff Giant|Cardiff Giant hoax]], and continued to make money off of it even after the hoax had been disproved.

** Barnum is reported to have said that he wished he had said it.

** Also, he never said "E equals MC squared" as many people attribute due to that being how one would read the equation. He said [http://extra.listverse.com/amazon/recordings2/emc2.mp3 "E is equal M C square"].

** As his Wikiquote page shows, he probably didn't say "Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity.".

** Nor did Gates ever say "640KB is all the memory you'll ever need" or any variation of that. Recent info has suggested that it was actually an IBM executive that originated the quote, and what he really said was more along the lines of "We believe that 640KB will meet the current needs of our customers." Regardless of whether it was Gates or someone at IBM, they most certainly did ''not'' intend to say that "No-one will ever require more than 640KB of memory," which is what the quote tends to be twisted into meaning.

* "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." This now-common saying is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, if anyone, but the closest thing he ever wrote was this: "I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a well-beaten path to his house, [even if] it be in the woods."

** Nor did Twain say, "I've never wished a man dead, but I read some obituaries with great pleasure." That quote comes from Clarence Darrow, who also later said, "I've never killed anyone, save for idiots attributing my goddam quote to Mark Twain."

* There is no evidence whatsoever that Galileo muttered "And yet it moves" or anything like it after his trial before the Italian inquisition. The myth of him saying the phrase only appeared around a century after his death.

* Kenneth Arnold, the pilot who "coined" the term [[Flying Saucer]], never actually used the term to describe his UFO encounter. Rather, he said that they flew "like saucers skipping across water." He would later describe the shape of the crafts he saw as something similar to a stealth bomber.

* The infamous [[Wolf Whistle|"wolf whistle"]], popularly depicted in American culture as the standard response to something titillating, usually doesn't sound quite the way it does in cartoons. Animated characters often draw it out, with a pause between the syllables and a rising pitch before the pause and a falling pitch after it, making the noise sound something like "WHEEEET...whoooo!" When the whistle is uttered in real life (and it isn't usually these days, as it's interpreted as rather rude), it is often only a single-syllable whistle ("Whoooo!") or is indeed two syllables but is pronounced much more quickly and with even stress ("Wheet-whoo!").

* Similarly, the "Bronx cheer" (the sound made by humans and certain other primates to suggest derision, which is called a "raspberry" in places outside the New York area) is often exaggerated in cartoons and on kids' TV shows. Most people pronounce it quick and loud, like a fart - but in fiction it tends to be ridiculously drawn out and to decrease in volume, as if someone were slowly letting the air out of a large helium balloon. (Then again, maybe this is just to [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|Get Crap Past The Radar]].)

 

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[[Category:Dialogue]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]