Tuesday, April 30, 2013

There Is A Lot Of Misused Popular Quotes

By Corina Davies


With social networking, we see many people using famous quotes in their updates and comments made throughout the Internet. What they fail to do is research their quote to confirm the origin, and to make sure they have not misquoted. This leads to many flame wars between individuals who will make a basic search, sometimes just to make fools of total strangers.

In fact there is an entire population of individuals on the World Wide Web who seem to get a great deal of personal pleasure by making others look foolish. These people are frequently referred to as trolls, and not everyone can ignore their rude commentary. In order to avoid being made to look foolish, doing some research when making posts is necessary.

Sometimes things have been quoted incorrectly for so long, and by so many people, that the correct quote is nearly forgotten. Bits of dialogue from old movies are frequently misquoted, although the misquote often means the same thing as the original dialogue. There are instances where people might leave a quote from a book, but that quote might be slightly different from what was in the movie dialogue.

People often will use words and phrases that were utilized by someone from the past, as sometimes these echoes express a thought better than they are able to. When statements made in years past are spoken again throughout the ages, they take on a mythic quality. Sometimes even if it is a misquote, the misquote somehow is more pertinent to life today than the original words spoken.

No more often does this occur than when people are quoting from philosophers, scientists, or other famous individuals from the ancient world. Some mistranslations occur simply because of linguistic differences, and something is changed in the translation. While there is no harm in such a misquote, the Trolls will still jump on it as soon as they see it.

Their behavior is generally simply bullying, and the only thing a person can do is ignore them. Over the years, many people have turned away from social networking or making commentary on the Internet in order to avoid these bullies. Trolls are usually pathetic individuals who have nothing better to do than go out of their way to humiliate and argue with strangers.

One thing that has begun to change, more and more sites on the Internet are attempting to require people to use their real names. The anonymity which has been such a part of the Net in the past is changing. This is going to make the constant trolling which has been going on a thing of the past.

The rule of thumb, before using famous quotes, do some research before making the post. Try to utilize not only the correct quote, but be certain that you credit it to the true original source of the statement. This can help people avoid confusion and misunderstanding, and one can put the trolls in their place when they attempt to claim that the quote is incorrect.




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