Problem
Who Said What When?
Answers
Who said Let them eat cake? When I Quotations change. Everything changes as you repeat it. It's hard to remember other people's exact words. It's even hard to remember words you have written yourself. How do you remember what was said by your own family, years ago?
Story About Chinese Whispers
My most embarrassing moment was when I suggested a game of Chinese whispers to a class of pupils learning English for O levels at a secondary school, Crescent Girls' School, in Singapore. My task was to help the English Enrichment programme to encourage those who had failed the mock exams to study English with renewed enthusiasm and pass. I had a room full of blank looks. I repeated, "Chi-nese Whis-pers! Did you understand?"
A helpful girl in the front row replied, "Yes, Miss. We understood. But we have never heard of that game."
When I described how you whispered a one, two or three sentence story to somebody and repeated it around the room, then compared the first version with the final version, the brightest girl immediately raised her hand. "Please, Miss, we call it 'Broken Telephone'."
Then came the killer question, "Please, Miss. Why do you call it Chinese Whispers?"
"Er ...?" I improvised rapidly. My first thought was that it must be something to do with pigeon or pidgin English - distortion by people who were not native English speakers. To tell them that was hardly encouraging.
However, as I started to say, "Chinese speakers in China ..." the politically correct answer came to me. "China is such a vast country that in the old days by the time a message passed from one end of the country to the other, remembered over several weeks, it would have changed, as we see happens even from the game played in a small room in less than 15 minutes."
The way to remember a message to pass on is to create a rhyme. Before printing and literacy, only the elite few had the time and money to learn to read and write. Poems, like songs, had rhyme and rhythm to help the reciters and singers to remember the words.
Let Them Eat Cake Quotation
In Singapore I go to Toastmasters International, a not for profit organisation which trains speakers and leaders. When I was President of a club in London, England, I needed a quotation of the week, better still one related to the day, as inspiration for my opening speech. I began collecting quotations of people who had been born or died every day of the year.
Let take the quotation: "Let them eat cake." Who said it? Marie Antoinette.
However, if you look into the records, we have lots of documents in her handwriting, including her tear-stained last letter to her children. But neither she nor anybody in her lifetime left a written record of the fact that she said, "Let them eat cake".
Researchers tell us that "Let them eat cake" was said by a previous VIP lady, many years earlier. The memorable saying was attributed to Marie Antoinette several years after she died. Why did the saying attributed to her catch on? Since it summed up what we are led to believe was her ignorance and distance from of the way of life and poverty of common people (despite the fact that she kept a mock farm).
Researching My Books Of Quotations
I compiled two books of Quotations:
1 Quick Quotations for speeches
(I expanded and renamed the second edition as Quick Quotations for authors and speakers);
2 Who Said What When
This book has quotations for every day of the year, the birth or death date of the person who supposedly said the quotation.
Marie Antoinette's supposed association with Let them Eat Cake was a problem. She didn't say it. Where should I put it? The solution is to say 'attributed to'.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several more posts on Bakewell tart and pudding and other foods and restaurants in the UK and worldwide. Please share links to your favourite posts.
Who Said What When?
Answers
Who said Let them eat cake? When I Quotations change. Everything changes as you repeat it. It's hard to remember other people's exact words. It's even hard to remember words you have written yourself. How do you remember what was said by your own family, years ago?
Story About Chinese Whispers
My most embarrassing moment was when I suggested a game of Chinese whispers to a class of pupils learning English for O levels at a secondary school, Crescent Girls' School, in Singapore. My task was to help the English Enrichment programme to encourage those who had failed the mock exams to study English with renewed enthusiasm and pass. I had a room full of blank looks. I repeated, "Chi-nese Whis-pers! Did you understand?"
A helpful girl in the front row replied, "Yes, Miss. We understood. But we have never heard of that game."
When I described how you whispered a one, two or three sentence story to somebody and repeated it around the room, then compared the first version with the final version, the brightest girl immediately raised her hand. "Please, Miss, we call it 'Broken Telephone'."
Then came the killer question, "Please, Miss. Why do you call it Chinese Whispers?"
"Er ...?" I improvised rapidly. My first thought was that it must be something to do with pigeon or pidgin English - distortion by people who were not native English speakers. To tell them that was hardly encouraging.
However, as I started to say, "Chinese speakers in China ..." the politically correct answer came to me. "China is such a vast country that in the old days by the time a message passed from one end of the country to the other, remembered over several weeks, it would have changed, as we see happens even from the game played in a small room in less than 15 minutes."
The way to remember a message to pass on is to create a rhyme. Before printing and literacy, only the elite few had the time and money to learn to read and write. Poems, like songs, had rhyme and rhythm to help the reciters and singers to remember the words.
Let Them Eat Cake Quotation
In Singapore I go to Toastmasters International, a not for profit organisation which trains speakers and leaders. When I was President of a club in London, England, I needed a quotation of the week, better still one related to the day, as inspiration for my opening speech. I began collecting quotations of people who had been born or died every day of the year.
Let take the quotation: "Let them eat cake." Who said it? Marie Antoinette.
However, if you look into the records, we have lots of documents in her handwriting, including her tear-stained last letter to her children. But neither she nor anybody in her lifetime left a written record of the fact that she said, "Let them eat cake".
Researchers tell us that "Let them eat cake" was said by a previous VIP lady, many years earlier. The memorable saying was attributed to Marie Antoinette several years after she died. Why did the saying attributed to her catch on? Since it summed up what we are led to believe was her ignorance and distance from of the way of life and poverty of common people (despite the fact that she kept a mock farm).
Researching My Books Of Quotations
I compiled two books of Quotations:
1 Quick Quotations for speeches
(I expanded and renamed the second edition as Quick Quotations for authors and speakers);
2 Who Said What When
This book has quotations for every day of the year, the birth or death date of the person who supposedly said the quotation.
Marie Antoinette's supposed association with Let them Eat Cake was a problem. She didn't say it. Where should I put it? The solution is to say 'attributed to'.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several more posts on Bakewell tart and pudding and other foods and restaurants in the UK and worldwide. Please share links to your favourite posts.
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