A news release from Toastmasters International begins with a quotation that really is not from Mark Twain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A quotation can be a powerful way to open an article or a speech. But if it isn’t real, then it just makes you look foolish. On May 5, 2021 there was a press release from Toastmasters International titled Toastmasters’ 5 Tips to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking that opened with:

 

“As Mark Twain once said, ‘There are two types of speakers: those who get nervous and those who are liars.’ “

 

On May 12, 2020 I had blogged about Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? In that post I discussed how in March 2020 Garson O’Toole, who writes the Quote Investigator, had looked for the source for that statement but found he only could trace it back to 1998. I found a 1984 reference for a similar statement. If Twain really said it, then we should know exactly where and when. But we don’t.    

 

An earlier press release from Toastmasters on October 21, 2015 has another version:

 

“Mark Twain once said there are two types of speakers in the world: 1) the nervous and 2) liars.”

 

But that style with a 1) and a 2) doesn’t even sound like Mark Twain’s writing. The quote fairy didn’t wave her magic wand and make him say what we would like to believe.

 

My image was assembled from an image of a fairy at Wikimedia Commons, and an 1895 print of Twain at the Library of Congress.