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We here are firmly in the camp that language is constantly evolving and grammar likes to serve language and effective communication, not the other way around. Putting aside the issue of unintentional mistakes, intentional use of atypical grammar or words isn't really something to get inherently upset or high and mighty about. And certainly those who claim some word like irregardless isn't actually a word, they're never correct. All words are words from the moment someone first coins them, at least according to pretty much every major dictionary out there. More on that in one of our favorite videos from the past. How do they decide what words go in the dictionary and are words ever removed?
On a similar note, if many people want to treat UFO as an initialism instead of an acronym and thus say UFO when they see the string of letters, in our opinion, one is on shaky ground if claiming that we've all been pronouncing it wrong. That said, it is very interesting to note how pronunciations sometimes diverge from what the original creators or people who popularized some term intended. Case in point, Edward J. Rupelt dying at the tender age of 37 of a heart attack. His is a name most only remembered today by those well-versed in the field of euphology. As to why said individuals are familiar with this man, this is largely because of his genuinely fascinating book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, which drew from his admirable work on Project Blue Book, a comprehensive set of investigations conducted by the US Air Force into the phenomena of flying sauces. While working on the project, Rapout famously suggested the phrase unidentified flying object to describe these sightings rather than flying saucer as was previously popular among the general public. He then acronized this to UFO and even instructed people on how this should be spoken. In this case, he suggested EUO. Yep. EUO is how the person who popularized and is sometimes credited as coining unidentified flying object instructed people on how to say the acronized version, not UFO.
Moving on from there, Dr. Seuss should actually be pronounced Dr. Zoe. But Theodore Geisel got tired of correcting people. So, we now all say Dr. Seuss instead of how he Dr. Seuss or Zoe actually pronounced it. Similarly, Wikipedia should technically be pronounced Wikipedia, not Wikipedia. This is if we're going to follow the lead of the original creator of the first wiki, Howard Cunningham, when he applied the Hawaiian word pronounced wiki, meaning quick, to his bit of web software, the wikiwaki web or wikiwiki web.
Moving on, once again, we have ye as in ye old coffee shop. While many people pronounce this ye, in fact, it should be pronounced simply the. You see the ye here is not the ye as in judge not that ye you be not judged but is rather a remnant of the letter thorn. The letter thorn was used in old Norse, old English, middle English, Gothic and Icelandic alphabets and is pronounced more or less like the diraph th. Around the 14th century, the use of th started to gain in popularity. At the same time, the way the letter was written gradually changed to look a lot like the letter Y instead of the original thing that looks like it's on the screen. Because of this shift in written form of the letter, combined with the advent of the printing press in the 15th century, many of which had no letter thorn, printers chose to use the letter Y as a substitute for the letter. This is why you'll occasionally see manuscripts from that time with things like yat or yt for that and of course the abbreviated to y or ye without a capital y. Despite the use of the small y here, it was still understood by readers to be pronounced like thorn or the diagraph th. Eventually, all but the yei popularly died out in favor of the respective th forms. Later, even ye went the way of the dodo, excepting being used in the names of trendy sounding old stores the English-speaking world over. Thanks to the Bible, most people are more familiar with the second plural pronoun ye, which is pronounced with a Y sound. As they are spelled the same, most people naturally assume the two words are the same. Of course, you old coffee shop would kind of be a bit of an awkward name. In the end, ye as in ye old bookstore is a completely different word using the letter thorn and instead should just be pronounced exactly like the. This doesn't sound nearly as archaic, so not exactly what the store owners are likely going for, but well, that can't be helped.
Moving on from words to phrases that most people get wrong. Anyone who's ever played telephone at camp knows how easy it is for your mind to twist, tweak, or completely change what you've just heard when you repeat it to someone else. common throughout history. Sometimes when this happens, the adapted quote frequently becomes more popular than the original, even when it occasionally changes the original meaning entirely. Here are just a few examples.
Money is the root of all evil. Completely incorrect both in what the original utterer was going for and in that actually money comes in handy to do a lot of good in the world from big things to just putting food on your family's table every day. So clearly not inherently evil. The actual quote is derived from a line found in one of St. Paul's letters to Timothy. This common misquote significantly emits three important words which changes the meaning of the passage completely. Paul's original admonition was for the love of money is the root of all evil. Timothy 6:10. Once again, the love of money, not as is so often stated, money itself. As you can see in the original version, it is coveting money or greed, not the money itself that is the root of all evil according to the saintly Paul, which well makes a lot more sense.
Next up, we have your cake and eat it too. The idiom you can't have your cake and eat it too deliciously illustrates the concept of making trade-offs and realizing that you can't have something if you have another. The phrase is often used when referring to compromises and alludes to making a choice between two options that could never be reconciled. In other words, the two options are mutually exclusive. Other cultures have adopted the spirit of this phrase to fit their own languages. For example, in Russian, the translated phrase is, "You can't sit on two chairs," which just saying, I'm pretty sure that I could. In German, the saying goes, you can't dance at two weddings, which you totally can just go to two weddings and dance. Problem solved. In Yiddish, the adage goes much like the Russian, except one, tuches is added on the end. Touches Yiddish for backside or less delicately the butt. So you can't sit on two chairs with the same butt. And really again we'd beg to differ here. But in any event with the cake expression I mean it's your cake. Why can't you eat it too? Surely that can't be the original expression as it also doesn't really make any sense as written. The phrase was actually used as early as 1538 in a letter from Thomas Howard the third Duke of Norfolk to Thomas Cromwell, Chief Minister of King Henry VIII. In the letter found and archived by British History Online, the Duke of Norfolk writes, "I require you to send me by this bearer my will, which ye have sealed in a box. I must alter things therein, for my substance in money in plate is not so good now by 2000, a man cannot have his cake and eat his cake." The was later published in a dialogue containing proverbs and epigs by John Hwood in 1562. Hwood switches the clauses so it reads, "Woe ye both eat your cake and how your cake." Over the next few hundred years, the phrase regularly showed up in books, plays, and other writings. For instance, in 1738, the phrase showed up in Jonathan Swift's political satire, Polite Conversation, when the character Lady Answer all exclaims, "She cannot eat her cake and have her cake." Linguists have debated for years over the proper order of the verb phrases. Up until the 19th or 20th centuries, more often than not, the proverb would read in some variation of you can't eat your cake and have it too, which of course makes a tad more sense than the modern version. Though in the end, the basic sentiment is the same. Once you eat your cake, there is no more cake. But according to Google Anram Viewer, a handy tracker of usage of phrases in published works over time, somewhere between 1938 and 1939, the percentage switched and you can't have your cake and eat it too became more prevalent. Right around this time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the now less common version of the proverb in his 1940 State of the Union address when referring to the need to increase spending for national defense, stating, "As will appear in the annual budget tomorrow, the only important increase in any part of the budget is the estimate for national defense. Practically all other important items show a reduction, but you know, you can't eat your cake and have it too."
As alluded to, some linguists have insisted that the have eat it is not correct due to the actual plausibility of the statement. You in fact can have your cake and then eat it. That isn't impossible. Therefore, it negates what the actual idiom stands for. Not unlike the common error of saying I could care less when one means I could not care less. On the other hand, eating it and then having it is impossible and absurd. Hence why this statement is in fact the correct turn of phrase. As an interesting aside, despite the have eat version being more prevalent in today's society, one amateur lingquist in particular insisted on using the correct version in a manifesto he wrote. That person was Theodore J. Kazinski, aka the Uni Bomber, and his insistence on using the correct version actually helped him get caught. The Uni Bomber had been mailing and placing homemade bombs aimed at maming people who were involved with modern technology since 1978. The FBI had been trying to track him down for decades. Finally, in April 1995, the FBI had a break in the case when the Uni Bombers's manifesto entitled Industrial Society and Its Future was sent to major publications across the country and was under the threat of violence demanded to be released to the public. If it was with conditions met, he promised to stop his bombings. In September 1995, it was published in the New York Times and Washington Post. In it, he derides that the industrial revolution has been a disaster for the human race and calls for a revolution against technology. Additionally, he provides this phrase as for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society. Well, you can't eat your cake and have it too. To gain one thing, you have to sacrifice another. Upon seeing this phrasing in the morning paper, David Kazinski finally decided his wife might be right and his brother really might be the uniomber. For their whole lives, their mother would correct them and insist that this was the correct usage of the phrase. This and other similarities in Ted's writing style and his political beliefs convinced David that he needed to speak up. David passed this information along with old family letters demonstrating Ted's writing style to the FBI, who employed forensic linguists to compare the manifesto to other pieces of writing Ted had given to his family. This information and other stylistic evidence convinced a judge to submit a search warrant. On April the 3rd, 1996, Ted Kazinski was arrested by the FBI at his cabin deep in the woods of Montana. His own demand to be heard did him in. As the Uni Bomber would say, you can't eat your cake and have it too.
And speaking of the Uni Bomber, there's but to do or die. In his 1854 poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, pens the famous line, "There's not to reason why, there's but to do or die." Again, we see the common misquote completely changes the meaning of the passage. In the original, the charging cavalry know they are likely on a suicide mission into the valley of death to do and die. But with the misquote, it sounds as if the soldiers believe that they can survive the mission if only they try hard enough to do or die.
And speaking of dying, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This frequently quoted adaptation of a line from William Congre's The Morning Bride from 1697 is an improvement on the original, both in terms of clarity and brevity. Congre's original line was, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell of fury like a woman scorned." The shortened version focuses on the basic theme of the line, beware betrayed women.
Speaking of women and revenge, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, who's the fairest of them all? In the 1937 Disney classic, Snow White's evil stepmother, the Queen, is a self-absorbed psychopath and also a witch. She keeps a magic mirror handy. In asking the famous question, what she really said was, "Magic mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all. Truly a slight modification." It is notable that in the adapted version, the mirror is just a mirror, but in the original, he's more like a person.
And moving on from there, Houston, we have a problem. On Saturday, April the 11th, 1970, astronauts Jim Levelvel, Jack Swagert, and Fred Hayes were shot out of Earth's orbit during the Apollo 13 mission. 2 days later, catastrophe struck and they lost their normal source of light, water, and electricity. Having the right stuff, Master of Understatement, Swagot, calmly noted after the explosion and alarms went off, "Not Houston, we have a problem," but rather, "Houston, we've had a problem." Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here. >> This is Houston. Say again, please. Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main debuff. >> This is a slightly more optimistic view of the situation if you think about it. Of course, with a lot of help from the team in Houston, the crew safely splashed down in the South Pacific on April the 17th, though the mission itself was technically a failure in terms of not accomplishing its original goals.
Next up, Elementary, My Dear Watson. sometimes quoted as elementary dear Watson. This is one of those phrases that everybody knows the character of Sherlock Holmes said and commonly quotes it when trying to act particularly intelligent. You know, just like everyone knows that Kirk said, "Beam me up, Scotty." And Darth Vader said, "Luke, I am your father." The thing is, none of those characters ever said any of those things. They said things that were similar certainly, but they never actually said those exact words despite the fact that most people think they did. Like Luke, I am your father, which was actually no, I am your father. Holmes never actually said elementary my dear Watson in any of the original 56 short stories or four novels starring his character. The closest he comes is in The Adventure of the Crooked Man. In this story, Holmes uses both the word elementary and the phrase my dear Watson in somewhat close proximity. The two, however, are not up together. I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson, said he. When your round is a short one, you walk, and when it is a long one, you use a handsome. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubtful that you are at present busy enough to justify the handsome. Excellent, I cried. Elementary, he said. Beyond that, there are only seven other instances of the word elementary being uttered in the official Sherlock Holmes works. Although he does say my dear Watson numerous times with a phrase appearing in about twothirds of the original stories, sometimes several times within a given story. It's noted by Sherlockian.net, one of the foremost sources on everything to do with Sherlock Holmes, that although Holmes never actually uses the oft misqued phrase elementary my dear Watson, he does use the phrase exactly my dear Watson in three different stories. for example, in his last bow where Holmes uses the phrase in a shoddy attempt to mask the obvious sexual tension between himself and his manservant or, you know, to agree to Watson's point. So, where did the phrase elementary my dear Watson come from? Well, the first known or at least recorded use of the phrase was in the 1915 novel Smith journalist written by PG Woodhouse. We should point out that the book in no way, shape, or form stars Sherlock Holmes. In fact, the Sherlock Holmes stories were still being published at this point. We should also point out that though Smith Journalist was published as a novel in 1915, it was a serial before that putting the date of the first known usage of the phrase is 1909. The exact first known instance of elementary my dear Watson which appears in that work is as follows. I fancy said Smith that this is one of those moments where it is necessary for me to unlim my Sherlock Holmes system. As thus if the rent collector had been there it is certain I think that comrade Spaghetti or whatever you said his name was wouldn't have been. That is to say, if the rank collector had called out and found no money waiting for him, surely Comrade Spaghetti would have been out in the cold night instead of under his own roof tree. "Do you follow me, comrade Maloney?" "That's right," said Billy Windsor. "Of course." "Ele, my dear Watson, elementary," murmured Smith. Woodous's work was noted to have taken obvious cues from Doyles, as as you perhaps guessed from the fact that Woodhouse ended up writing one of the most enduring quotes for a character that he didn't create.
Going still with the misquot from popular entertainment. Play it again, Sam. Released in 1942 and starring Humphrey Bogurt and Ingred Bergman, Casablanca still rates as the second best movie of all time behind Citizen Kain according to the American Film Institute. Regardless, the oft repeated line was never uttered in the film. Furthermore, although many attribute the adapted version to Bogar, the closest thing to it comes from Bergman's character Ilsa, who says, "Play it once, Sam. Play it, Sam."
And finally, we have Nice Guys finish last. Leo de Roa managed the Brooklyn Dodgers 1939 to 1948, New York Giants 1948 to 1955, Chicago Cubs 1966 to 1972 and Houston Astros 1972 to 1973. Leo's famous oneliner came when he was coaching the Dodgers. The original quote was actually, "Why, they're the nicest guys in the world and where are they in seventh place." Where the line never changed, it's likely it would have soon been lost to history. But shortening it down to its essence, newsmen and baseball fans converted a simple comment on the 1946 Giants into a transcendent statement about the nature of all mankind and the sad fate of all the nice guys out there who, if the world was fair, would always finish first.