Beam Me Up, Scotty: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

Subtrope of [[Common Knowledge]]. See also [[Dead Unicorn Trope]], [[Media Research Failure]], [[Mondegreen]], [[God Never Said That]]. If the misassociated line is eventually co-opted into the source as a sort of [[Shout-Out]] to the confusion, it becomes an [[Ascended Meme]]. If the line is correct but lack of context changes the meaning, or if the line is chopped up to change its meaning, it is a [[Quote Mine]]. If the quote becomes the only thing associated with a person, it's a case of [[Never Live It Down]]. This trope can be extended to [[Iconic Item]]s the character never actually had, such as Holmes' deerstalker. For tropes [[I Thought It Meant|actually about beaming characters up]], see [[Teleporters and Transporters]].

 

== Advertising ==

* 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.

 

== 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!

** 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:

:* 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.

* It's often said (rather inaccurately) that "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels." The original quote is from a 1982 ''[[Frank and Ernest]]'' [https://allthetropes.org/wiki/File:Frank_and_Ernest_-_Ginger_Rogers.jpg cartoon]:

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

* 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 ==

** 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 ==

** 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.]]'':

* 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.

* 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."

::* "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.".

* [[Bill Gates]] did not say, "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one," it was Charles J. Sykes.

** 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]]