Thursday, May 27, 2021

A Mark Twain ‘quote’ that won’t go away

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be careful before using a quotation. At Mindful Presenter on May 23, 2021 there is an article by Maurice DeCastro titled 7 Tips to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking. They are:

 

Tip 1: Mark Twain was right

Tip 2: Listen to Wayne Dyer, he was right too

Tip 3: Stop presenting and start connecting

Tip 4: Speak nicely to yourself

Tip 5: Remember how far you’ve come

Tip 6: Ask yourself 4 questions

Tip 7: Take it to Vagus

 

Under Tip 1 he begins:

 

"Here at Mindful Presenter Ltd we believe that Mark Twain was right when he said, ‘There are two types of speakers: Those who get nervous and those who are liars.’

 

On May 12, 2020 I blogged about Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? In that post I discussed how both Garson O’Toole and I found that Twain ‘quote’ only showed up late in the twentieth century, so it really didn’t come from him.

 

Under DeCastro’s Tip 4 he mentions Matt Abrahams. On September 29, 2020 I blogged about how Matt was responsible for A quantified version of a discredited Mark Twain quotation about fear of public speaking.

  

On May 7, 2021 I blogged about how A news release from Toastmasters International begins with a quotation that really is not from Mark Twain.

 

The image of Twain with the quote fairy was assembled from an image of Twain at the Library of Congress and a fairy from Wikimedia Commons.  

 


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