"Don't believe everything you tweet -- but don't quote me on that":

[elocs]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/05/dont-believe-everything-you-tweet-----but-dont-quote-me-on-that/1?loc=interstitialskip

By John Bacon, USA TODAY


Some historical "quotes" that are burning up Twitter and Facebook among people who feel uncomfortable celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden are not holding up too well under closer scrutiny.

Ohio State students celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden at Mirror Lake on campus in Columbus.
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By Mitch Andrews, AP
The Atlantic, and some other sites, did their homework. What they found was that if one quote, from Martin Luther King Jr., seems too applicable to be true, it's because it isn't. The other quote, widely attributed to Mark Twain, was said -- just not by Twain.

The MLK "quote" making the social network rounds begins with this: "I will mourn the death of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."

Megan McArdle, the business and economics editor at The Atlantic, reports that those apparently are in fact the immortal words of middle school teacher Jessica Dovey, 24. It was the musing she placed before an MLK quote about how "returning hate for hate multiplies hate..." All good stuff, but the key opening line was Jessica's alone. A cut and paste here, a dropped quotation mark there -- multiplied by millions -- and Jessica made literary history, sort of. You can see McArdle's story for the details.

DUers were more than happy to spread this mis-attributed quote around as well as this one that was claimed to be by Mark Twain: "I have never killed a man, but I have read a great many obituaries with great pleasure" when it was really said by Clarance Darrow.

[villager]

1. But the sentiments, in both cases, were there for people to agree with...

In other words, no one came up with an original source who said the opposite of the promulgated quote...?

[MineralMan]

2. If you're going to quote a famous person, you owe it to

others to check to make sure that person said the thing you're about to quote. It's easy. Google will find out for you very quickly.

Misquoting people like Dr. King, and Gandhi, and others is unforgivable, IMO. It's so easy to check to see if those people said what you plan to quote.

It's just proper to make sure.