Why Do We Quote? The Culture and History of Quotation

Ruth Finnegan is Visiting [{esearch Professor imd Emeritus Profl'Ssor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open Uni versity. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1996 ilnd iln Hon. Fellow of Somerville College Oxford in 1997; and was awarded an OBE for services to Sod.. 1 Sciences in 2000. Her publications include Lilllba Stories alld Slur}l-Telling 1967, 1981; Oral Literature in Africa, 1970; Mode:; of Thought (ioint ed.), 1973; Oral Poetry, 1977, 1992); lllfirrmation Technology: Sodallssues (joint ed.), 1987; Utl'racy alld Orality: Studies ill tile Tee/m%gy of Communicatioll, 1988; Tire Hidde/l MU$iciarl:;: Music-Making ill an E'lg/isll '7
Ruth Finnegan

Why Do We Quote? The Culture and History of Quotation

Cambridge

OpenBookM Publishers ~ 2011

OpenBook iI1Y11l Publishers~

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To the lIlany voices that have shaped a"d resounded in lily OW1I, above all those of my family, past and }JYesent.

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Note on Sources

XI XIV XVII

I. SETTING THE PRESENT SCENE 1. Prelude: A Dip in Quoting's Ocean 2. Tastes of the Present: The Here and Now of Quoting 2.1. 'Here and now'?

3 13 13

2.2. What are people quoting today?

IS

2.3. Gathering and storing quotations

33

3. Putting Others' Words on Stage: Arts and Ambiguities of Today's Quoting

43

3.1. Signalling quotation

43

3.2. When to quote and how

55

3.3. To quote or not to quote

63

3.4. So why quote?

74

11. BEYOND THE HERE AND NOW

77

4. Quotation Marks: Present, Past, and Future

79

4.1. What are quote marks and where did they come from?

80

4.2. What do they mean?

95

4.3. Do we need them?

108

5. Harvesting Others' Words: The Long Tradition of Quotation Collections

113

5.1. A present day example: The Oxford Dictionary of

Quotations 5.2. Forerunners in the written Western tradition

120

5.3. Where did they come from?

141

5.4. Why collect quotations?

147

114

V111

Why Do We Quote?

6. Quotation in Sight and Sound

153

6.1. Quoting and writing - inseparable twins?

154

6.2. The wealth of oral quotation

159

6.3. Quoting blossoms in performance

167

6.4. Music, script and image

173

7. Arts and Rites of Quoting 7.1 Frames fot others' words and voices

183 184

7.1.1. Narrative and its plural voices

184

7.1.2. Poetry

188

7.1.3. Exposition and rhetoric

189

7.1.4. Ritual and sacred texts

192

7.1.5. Play

195

7.1.6. Displayed text

197

7.2. An array of quoting arts

198

7.3. How do the thousand flowers grow and who savours them?

212

8. Controlling Quotation: The Regulation of Others' Words and Voices

221

8.1.Who plants and guards the flowers? Imitation, authorship, and plagiarism 223

223

8.2. Constraining and allowing quotation: flower or weed?

232

8.3. The fields where quoting grows

246

Ill. DISTANCE AND PRESENCE

253

9. What Is Quotation and Why Do We Do It?

255

9.1. So what is it?

256

9.2. The far and near of quoting

259

9.3. Why quote?

264

Appendix 1. Quoting the Academics

267

Background to this study: citing the authorities

267

Academics quoting

279

Appendix 2. Ust of the Mass Observation Writers References

287

Index

321

299

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1.1 'If it weren't for the last minute.. ' Fig. 1.2 'Dad turns out all right' Fig. 1.3 War memorial, Church Green Road, B1elch1ey, November 2009

3 4 6

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1.4 Graveyard quoting 2.1 Example of extract from a Mass Observer comment 2.2 An 85 year-old widow's quoting 2.3 Sayings in 'our circle of friends' 2.4 A large collection of quotation books

8 16 20 30 39

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

3.1 '1 Was suddenly conscious of the quote marks' 4.1 New English Bible: Matthew, Chapter 21, verses 1-6 4.2 Revised Standard Bi ble : Matthew, Chapter 21, verses 1-6 4.3 Reina Va1era Bible (Spanish), web version: Matthew,

47 81 82

Chapter 21, verses 1-6 Fig. 4.4 Holy Bible King James Version: Matthew, Chapter 21, verses 1-6 Fig. 4.5 New Testament (Greek), London, 1885 : Matthew, Chapter 21, verses 1-5 Fig. 4.6 The New Testament, translated into English by William Tynda1e, Worms, 1526: Matthew, Chapter 21, verses 1-6 Fig. 4.7 The Bible and Holy Scriptures Conteined in the Olde and Newe Testament, Geneva 1560 : Matthew, Chapter 21, verses 1-7

82 83 83 84 85

Fig. 4.8 Dip1e marks in an 8th century manuscript: Bede's, Commentary on Proverbs Fig. 4.9 Scriba1 citation marks, 7th to 9th centuries AD Fig. 4.10 Laurence Sterne, Yorick's Sentimental Journey, Dublin, 1769

87 88 91

Fig. 4.11 The Crisis ofthe Sugar Colonies, London, 1802

93

x

Why Do We Quote?

Fig. 5.1 First page of The Oxford Dictionary ofQuotations, 7th edition, 2009 Fig. 5.2 Page from the 1st edition of Mcdonnel's Dictionary ofQuotations London, 1797 Fig. 5.3 Title page of American edition based on Macdonne1's Dictionary, Philadelphia 1854 Fig. 5.4 Rounde1 of Erasmus by Hans Ho1bein the Younger in Adages, Base1 1533 Fig. 5.5 From an early manuscript of Thomas of Ire1andManipulus florum Fig. 5.6 Richard Taverner's edition of Cato's Distichts with Erasmus' commentary, London, 1540

115 123 126 127

134 139

Fig. 5.7 The Dictes and Sayings ofthe Philosophers printed by William Caxton 1477 Fig. 5.8 From the world's earliest proverb collection: inscribed clay tablet from ancient Sumer Fig. 6.1 Nepalese shaman communing with the ancestors in trance

148 164

Fig. 6.2 A calligraphic declaration of faith Fig. 6.3 The entry into Jerusalem Fig. 6.4 "To hunt hares with a drum"

177 178 179

Fig. 6.5 'Two dogs over one bone seldom agree"

180

Fig. 6.6 Ashanti goldweight proverb Fig. 7.1 'Lord Randa1'

181 187

Fig. 7.2 The Ten Commandments on Buckland Beacon Fig. 7.3 A confusion of quoting terms Fig. 8.1 'In Defense of Robert Burns. TheCharge of plagiarism

198 213

Confuted', Sydney, 1901 Fig. 8.2 King Henry VIII's Proclamation prohibiting unlicensed printing, London, 1538 Fig. 8.3 The Roman Catholic Church's Index ofProhibited Books,

224

Rome 1559 Fig. 8.4 Gibbon accused of misquotation and plagiarism, London 1778

234

143

233

237

Preface

Until this book somehow crepl under my guard J hadn't thought I was much interested in quoting or quotation: something 10 be deployed with caTe in some settings, no douht, but not a thing to be invl'stignted. Certainly I had learned 10 use quote marks al school and later 10 wield quolillions in academic writing, and had become aW3re of copyright obligations and the currenl conCt'lnS about plagiarism ,md ilbout unauthorised words floating free on the web. I was also vaguely aware that words and voices

from elsewhere ran through what [ s.lid, [ read them in books, Tl'Cognised

them in formal spl>(!chl'S, heard them in cunversation. But I hild just come to accept this as pari of common practice, not anything 10 be really noticed, f'H less to .House parlicu lar curiosity. As I thought about it, I realised how little I knew about quoting and quotation. What does il mean, this strang" human propenSity to repeat chunks of lexl from elsewhere and 10 echo others' voices? How does it work and where did it come from? Does it matter? Why; anyway, do IV\' quote? I started by reflecting more can·fully on my own experience and was startled by how quoling permeated my world. And then I wondered how others were using. or not using, quotation both nearby and in far away times and places. On some aspects I found a vast and fascinatingliteratufe. ButtheI"C Sl'('med no Single accountlhat directly tackled my questions .lboul just what 'quotation' and 'quoting' were, how we had got to wheT'{' we now are, and how in practice these had been used ,md conceptualised. This led me to considering how people here and now actually use quotation (in practice, that is, not just according to the grammar books) and also, going on from that, whether wc might understand these present practices better by exploring something of their background and whether the problems currently c'lusing concern belong just to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, or perhaps h
xii

Wily Do We Quote?

Before r could move on to those wider issues r needed 10 devote some serious attention to examining what I call the 'hefe and now', So the book begins frum a lengthy example frum con!l'mporary England. Looking at lhe present gave me the interest and incentive to dig down further into what lies behind it. For the ways we and others quote now are nut just random. Evt'n the small matter uf quute marks turns out to have a complex history of development and cultuml controversy behind it. J hasten to add that this IS not intended as a comprehenSive history, certainly not a chronological narrative through from the 'beginning', or even systematically through a few centuries of Western history - either would be impossibly ambitious. Rather it uses a series of small case studies to sketch some historical background to where we are today and throw greater light on bolh past and present. It is only a limited study and largely - though certainly not ("xc!usiv(']y - biased towards the products and practices of West('rll culture. But even that, I found, helped to put sume perspective on the practicl'S of tuday and both the recurrent and the changing patterns behind them, This book is upSide down from many monographs, [n moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar and b'lck, its ordering is to go b'lckwards from the present to the past rather than the other way round, and outwards from the nearby to the further-off. It's in an unusual order in another way too: the first part begins with th" persunal and local r,lthH than the cunvt'ntional prolegomellll ilbout scholilfly literature and theoretical rationa[e, That academic gesture mostly comes in Appendix I and to a smaller extent the footnotes. Between them these two hav" a dual roll' fur they alsu function as a pertinent example of the quote-heavy ilcademic style which is current! y a prominent setting for quotation. I'm not sur(' when tht, id('a uf doing a study uf quoting first hit me. But once it did it I began to realise that contrary to my first presupposition I was in fact intensc1 y interested in the su bject and h,ld been for some time. It converged with themes with which I've long be('n engaged. Bt'ing drilled in the contrast of 'direct' and 'indirect' reported speech in my earlier classical studies (not just grammar but an immutable law of the uni wrse, it scem('d), learning correct reft'r"ncing modes, tussling with differing American and British citation conventions in journal editing, grading student essays, warning about plilgiarising, arguing over quotiltion in oral as against written communication, or contemplating the transmission of wisdom over the ages and who controls it, the beauties of allusion and

Preface

XLii

intertextuaJity in verbal arts, and the multiply-voiced diaJogic processes of communicJtion - all this gives a long background to my interest in the words and voices of ottll'rs. So too does the elusive question of how we interrelate with voices from other plilct·s, and, something that in my earlier work on communicating I found most intractable of all, from other times.

Acknowledgements

Let me start by expressing my gratitude to the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Sociology discipline in the Open University not just for rescarch support but also - even more treasured - for their long-continuing warm

collcagucship. I also acknowledge with lh,mks the many libraries ilnd archives from whose resources I have benefited, above all the British Library, the Archives of the Oxford University Press, .md the Open University's Library. that unfailing support over so many yeills, both on the spot and through its amazing electronic resources and its great tnler LibrilTy Loan service. I have been fortunate indeed in my long association with the Open

University, its staff and its idcills. I have very spL'Cial th;lnks to the Mass ObscrvMion Archive ilt the Univer!>ity o( Sussex and its staff who assisted so generously and patientl y in this work (espedally Fiona Courage, ]essica 5l:antlebury and Dorothy Sheridan) and, ilOOve all, to the wonderful panel of M.1SS Observation writers for their thoughtful, full and challenging responses to the autumn 2006 Milss Observiltion 'Dinxtive' ilOOut quoting ilnd quotiltion. Their perceptive commentaries underpin this book. I also acknowledge with real gratitude the help I have received from friends and co!leilgues, as well as from scholars who responded in a spirit of generous scholilrly cooperation to queries over the internet. Those who have contributed to the long genesis of this text are legion, whether by direct suggestions, by sharing their resources, or just - and this too WilS greatly ilpprcdated - by their ilctive interest or quiet encouragement. They arc too many to list individually but let me at least thank Karin Barber, Anna Bonifa7.i, Bill Bytheway, Tom Cheesman, the late Desmond Costil, John Miles Foley, Graham Furniss, Marie Gillespie, Michael Hilncher, Werner KeJber, MichaeJ Knibb, Elizabeth Knowles, Robert Murray, Chris Nighman (!>pedal thank!> for his expert ,lssi!>t,mce on Mallipului
Acknowledgements

xv

Brian Watson, and David Wilson. I recall too with great appreciation the friendly reception and constructive comments I received at the American Fulklore Society Annual Mel'ling in Salt Lake City in 2004 where I first dipped my toes into this vast subject in a nervous plenary lecture. I am also extremely grateful to the publisher's anonymous reviewer whose thorough reading and advice saved me from many errors. May I also thank thuse who have helped me with the illustrations and with IT problems generally: in earlier years John Hunt (still a source of support), more recently Sue Sl'arle and, especially; the ever patient Fleur LeCroissette, the IT wizard in the Open University's Social Science Faculty. And to thcse thanks let me add, as ever, my appreciation of the huge contribution by David Murray, nol just his photographs and his active support but also for the many pMhs, intellectual and other, that we have shared over the years. I must not omit to voice my appreciation of Open Book Publishers. It was their unusual combination of vision and reillism thM drew me to them in the first place. It has .11so proved a pleasure working with them, in personal as well as professional tenns. In more formal vein I acknowledge with gratitude the manypermissions to wproduce cupyright material. For the illustrations: Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive (Figs 2. J, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.1); The Bodleian Llbrnries, University of Oxford (Fig. 4.8: MS Budley 819 fol 16; Fig. 4.9 (2): Ms Bibl b 2 (I') (14); Durham C
xvi

Wily Do We Quote?

Dictionaries Survey; FabL'r & Faber for the poem 'This Be the Verse' by Philip Larkin (first published in Philip Larkin Higll Windows, Faber & Faber, 1974); and, with very special gratitude, Curtis Bruwn Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive for allowing me to reproduce extensive quotations from the material produced by the panel of wrikrs responding to the Mass Observation Archive Directive Sl'nt out in autumn 2006, material which forms 11 key element in this volume: my heartfelt thanks both to the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archl\'(' and (let me repeat) to its panel of writers. Clearing copyright pennissions is a tedious and irksome task, but I would like to express my thanks not only to the organisations concerned, but also to those individuals whose humanity and warmth added a touch of enjoyment to the process, in p,uticular Cordon Wise of the Cu rtis Brown Group, Catherine Turner of the Durham Cathedral Libmry, Ruth Bowler at the WaIters Art Museum, Martin Maw of the Oxford University Press Archives, and Auste Mickunaile of the British Libr,uy. In a few cases copyright holders could not be tr,lce
Abbreviations and Note on Sources

MilSS UbSCTVl'TS,

Parlicip.mt obsl'rvers/cummcntators frum Mass

British observersl

Observation panel consulled Autumn 2006 (see

commentators

Chapter 2, Appendix 1 and Appendix 2)

MOlxxxxx

Code number of individual commentiltor from the Mass Observation panel, Autumn 2006 (full list, Appendix 2), nrchived in Mass Observntion Archive, University of Sussex Library, Brighton, UK

CWE

Erasmus, Desiderius (1982- ) Col/eelI'd Works of EraSIHlll'. English t'r,lns]alion, Toronto: University of Toronto Pn:.'Ss

ODQ

Oxford Diet iOllary of Quntllt ;""1' (numef,lis i ndiea!e edition)

OUP Archives

Oxford University ['ress Archives, Oxford, UK

QUP survey 2006

Oxford

University

Press,

Oxford

Modern

Quotations Diclion,lrics Survey 2006

I have generally followed the usuiLl academic conventions for referencing and citing primary and secondary suurces, but r'lther than too much peppering of the texl hn cont..ntious) qUL'Stions of author, cxm:1 wording or origins. Also, since this work is directed to th(> general rather than specialist r(>ader J have mostl y opted for English translations of texts in for{'jgn languages.

1. SElTING THE PRESENT SCENE

1. Prelude:

A Dip in Quoting's Ocean

As I sit upstairs at my desk thinking about quoting, a series of repeillcd chunks of language and evocations of voices become visible and iludiblc to me. On a shelf beside me stands a calligmphic display framed in New Zealand wood given me by a (nol wholly rcspcrlfu1) daughter: 'If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would gct done',

'1f it weren't for the

laSt minute, nothing wouiJ get' done .....•

Fig. 1.1 'If it weren't for the last minute.. : (Calligraphy: Brigid Duffleld) [t

declares itself as a quotation by the OJrly double marks al slart and

finish of the first three lines and its attributed author at the bottom (the famous 'Anonymous'); also perhilps by its frame, its layout and the white spaces around the displayed words. Hy my husband's dL'Sk loo is a posler, given by another daughter. This time there are no quote marks or author, butthey are certilinly not her own words (I hilve seen them on the web too, ilgilin over the 'unknown' hlg), and their decorative display once again suggests they are being presented as another's.

4

Why Do

Wc Quo/c? Da,( h4nl5 Ollt rwlir•• fn

arr

t(nlt

Jl4r3. :My 'Daaatj can ao anythIng. 7 ':JI41'3< :My Dad [nows a {Pt, a ...JWfe Cot.

i

s years.: 'z ~

1J:U( .1.xsn'r klWIt' 'l.ufw t.wr:J.rhfng. oh \oW{(, nftf1ira.{(, 'fftrller- ~tl'1' unt&rsM tU!.

14

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dim.

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~"!Frs. 1 w[slt ') amI; tl1[f rt O\ltr wftfi

onc"

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'-- -;:::: c:: ~ _:r~i'\)"" Fig. 1.2 'Dad turns oul all right'. in the corridor outside for long hung a scroll with words from the much-

lOlled 'Desiderata' Go placidly amid th" nois" and ha,t"... With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, It is ,tIll a beautiful world here with the author's name, Max Ehrmann, clearly given. Its place and words remain in our m('mory, though we took it down when it faded. But it's not just displays on the walls. Back at my computer I see quott' marks sCdtlered through the texts on my screen, and when [ search the web for this and that I constantly come on inverted commilS, displayed quotiltions, 'quutt's of th... day', quotations as personal flags in ell'ctrunic messages dnd displays, and reported speech all over the place. They come in my own writing too. And around me are some of the hundreds

1. Prelude

5

of books from which I h
The words of others reveal themselves all around. And Ionly have to step into the street to find public displaysof quotations. Outsid... a nearby chufch nlarge~letter pl.lc.lrd propels a biblical quotation into view while at a vet's practice the Animal Ambulance Service's motto "First do no harm" is displayed between double quote marks. A few hundred yards along the road stands the promin<-'nt war meffiorinl, only too frequent a monument in English settlements, inscribed with iln often quoted verse. Just behind is an nndent graveyard. still used and as ever a fertile site for drawing on others' words and voices in the encounter with death. Its stoncs arc covered in words, not just namcs and datcs but quotations from the Bible or frum constantly repented sayings, sometimes between duuble quotiltion marks, sometimes set apart by !.lcing inscribed in capitills or gothic lettering: 'The Lord is my shepherd', 'I know that my red<.'cmer lives / and at last he shall stand upon the earth', 'Thy will be dune', To Jive ill the hear/I< 0fthol<e /Of love is lIot to die'. There are longer verses too, many of them

6

Why Do We Quote?

Fig. 1.3 War memorial, Church Green Road, Blelchley, No\'ember 2009, The names of the war dead a~ inscribed above, and ~Iow comes the wellknown memorial veT5e 'Ye that live (ml Mid English pastures greenl Remember us and thinkl What might have been'. The poppy wreaths and small cros5CS at th" foot of the memorial had ~en placed there by part.dpants in the ritual Remembrance Day procession held each November (photo: David Murray)

commonly uSl'd on gnlv('S but seldum if evt'r with attribution to authors. On one it was8lin..s from Frances Crosby's 'Safe in the arms of Jesus, / Silf.. on His gentl.. breilSt. ..' (sce Fig. 1.4), on another on.. of the many variants on a much-repeated obituary verse GOD SAW WHEN THE FOOTSTEPS FALTERED WHEN THE PATH HAD GROWN TOO STEEP SO HE TOUCHED THE DROOPING EYELIDS AND GAVE HIS LOVED ONE SLEEP

1. Prelude

7

or, among many others, the less common but still much-quoted YOU HAVE NOT REALty 1,.En US NOR ARE YOU VERY fAR BUT ENTERED HEAVEN'S GARDEN

AND LEFT" THE DOOR AJAR.

In the nearby shops are piles of greeting~ cards, often with little VNSL'S which might or might not be quoted from elsewhere - certainly other words than those of whoever in the end sends the card. There are novels and illustrated storybooks too, spattered with quoted speech and dialogue demarcated in varying ways from the surrounding text. A little further afield, larger shops stock biographies, novels, histories and children's r(>ading, all again shot through with quoted words and dialogues, nnd in some shops one or more of the many published collections of quotations. The local newspapers too swann with quotes and 'alleged' words from people they n interchange rhymes and ditties in the playgrounds, parents repeat nursery rhymes. We echo the words from well-known songs or hear the ringingly familiar passages from the Bible in church readings or public ceremonies. In my own case I may no longer often quote aloud from the classical writers that

8

Why Do We Quote?

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Fig. 1.4 Graveyard quoting. Gravestones in graveyard by St Mary's Church, Bletchle}, three examplf.'s of the many with quotations (photos: David MJrray)

1. Prelude

9

delighted my school and college days or the many biblical and poetic texIs I learnt and repeated at school - but they still evoke memories, acoustic not just cognitive. I do occasiunally enjoy showing off to nun-Liltinak relilliuns by dl'\::liliming Quadripcdatrte pu/rem :lOlritll f/llatit rmg/1I1l campwll, one of my father's favourite lines - mine too - from Virgi1. No literal translation can capture it (it's roughly 'The hoof with its four-footed sound is shilking the powdery plain') but once spoken and felt with its sonic syllables and stirring hexameter rhythm It resonates with the Sight, sound and tremor of a galloping horse's hooves striking the crumbly ground. I realise too that quotations from great writers and revered works swim through my speech, if only in abbreviated form, with echoes of sound as well as sense: 'Uneasy lies the head ... ', 'Full of sound and fury', 'Some more equal than others', 'All hope 'lbandon ... '. I illso catch myself quoting a vilriety of proverbs or, perhaps more tilctfully, silently rehearsing them: the words of others live in the mind, not just on page or pl,lcard. Two of my f,lVourites Me the (ilbbreviated) 'A watched pot... ' ilnd 'Two birds with one stone'; just the other dayit was 'More haste Icssspeed' fit a church meeting. So too with the small but colourful phrases that lace conversational interchanges - 'Power corrupts', 'Money talks', 'Shool the messenger... ': familiar phrases indeed but still with that resonance llbout them that evokes the feci of quotation. And when small children arc around what should come out but snippets from lung-quokd nursery rhymes. And then again quoted dialogue is not just something in books but a corrunon part of everyday life as we repeat what wc have heard from others. I do it myself. Sometiml'S knuwing well what I'm ilt, sumetimes (I now realise) much less consciously, I I'\::ho the words and voices of others. [ notice others doing the S,lme. attributed or not. extensiwly or not, and regul<1rly rl'galing pieces from conversations they have heard ur been engaged in or, perhaps, imagined. 1 hear and overhear the familiar sequences of 'he said', 'she said', 'I said' in a multitude of situations, from my own home to interchangl'S on bus, strl'et, coffee morning, school plilyground ilnd hospitill. My experience has been moulded too by family sayings, not just from the present generation but also ones that havr: come down the years. I recall words and voices from my younger dilYS ilnd at timl'S still use them with other family members todily. Wc quole my father's 'If you want something done ask a busy man', words I still hear in his voice and haw always taken as his own -not originated by him, I now realise, but anyway we pass them on in his name. Still mimicked with affectionate amusement is my father's reproachful

Wily Do We Quote?

10

'Now dear...' (in
~

Her rumblings abdominal Were something phenomenal And everyone thought it was me. My mother's favourite was Blake's Tyger tyger burning bright In the forest of the night Whal immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry.,. which I always associate with her bright-eyed delivery. My mother had her favoured maxims too. No duubt many cam... fmm elsewhere but they b...came personal to her, and to us, and w... still quote and think uf them as hers: When in doubt tell Ihe truth. Don·t expect life to be fair. 011 [aut s(luffrir p"ur ilre bdlc. You don't have to like your neighbours but you hJve to get on with them. Bc good - but if you can't be good be clever. Or again there was her familiar admonition, with the additional flavour of its further inner quotation, As your father always used to say, 'On the whole it is best to keep to what has been arranged'. In the younger generation we h(lve the exaggeratedly pronounced 'End uf the WIlY/d ... !' - mocking, and hopefully pre-empting, over-thetop reactions to some colossal but, well, really not in the end so very world-shattering, disaster. My mother's r,lther effective version, still wdl r...memb... red, was 'Well- in Ihe cont...xl of world events ... ?'. And amidst the wider family of the spreading Finnegan descendants we can scarcely (lvoid sometimes singing the odd verse or two of the silly but engagingly self·teasing song we inevitably shar... There was an old man called Michael Finnegan He grew whiskers on his chinnigan The wind Came out and blew them in again Poor old Mkhae1 Finnegan

Begiu"eg"" IBegi" agn;II).

1. Prelude

11

Now that I have come to notice it, I see that not just as academic citer of others' words but everywherl' I am bound into a web of words Md vuices frum othl'rs, both seriuus and light-hearted - shiftingly-crystallised repeated gobbets of text tones of multiply re-sounding voices. Quoting and quotations are intenvoven into my life and into my interactions with others - and quoting, no dou bt, in many senses of that term, though ['m not always sure eXilctly what or how. So much for myself. But I hilVC tncreasingly come to wonder how far my experience matchl's thuse of others; and since quoting is not just an individual matter, what .1re the social arrangements and conventions that promote and filcilitilte it, and the definitions -perhilps chilnging over time? - by which people mark out 'quot<1tion'. [s it indeed il universal humiln propensity or so culturally variable ilS to be impo,;sibll' to pin down? Just whilt quoting is, whnt counts ilS 'quotiltion', where it comes from, and how othl'rs practise nnd experience it demand further exploration. The answers to such questions doubtless lie in part in the far away and long ilgO of quoting: the long-liwd published coJlections. the developments ilnd institutions of the past, and the literary ilnd gmmmilticill conventions wc inherit. But it may be equally pl>rtinent to first gain some insight into the present. into how people engilge with quoting here and now. I knl'w whilt the school books prescribed, but not so much ilbout how people todily actually use quoting in practice and what they think about it. 50 that is where I start.

2. Tastes of the Present: The Here and Now of Quoting

Well, I'm quite likely to quote from almo,1 anything_ Certainly conV<:r:;ahons ['ve had Or heard, lines from plays, [in"" fro:n poems Or books, newspapers and magazines, the Bible, calch-lin('S from comedy shows.!"fut jokes (Retired claims assessor, East Sus'>Cx)'

I thought I didn't quote much. My husband pointed out to me that in his opinion I was wrong

(33 year old primary school teacher, Yorkshire)'

Whill do people quote, and how? Where do they find their quotations? And \Vhill do th"y think about quoting? Since my own experience only goes so far, the next hvo chapters take a look at how some present-day people.ue engaging in quotation in the everyday life of here and now.

2.1. 'Here and now'? Not that 'here and now' is simple to pin down. Even in the most local of local settings people follow diverse ways, and, as we know well, local piltterns do not stand alone but interilct with others across the world and the generations. To add to the complexity, any population contains people of many .lges whose experiences and memories span many different timescalcs. But if there is no single 'here and now', it is still worth starting out not from a generalised invocation of 'Wh.lt we usually do', let alone grander terms like 'the normal practice', 'our contempOrilry assumptions' or 'ordinary people's experience', but from a specific time and place. So my intention here is to take a slice through people's practices in Britain today, 1 Mass Observer MO/BHI98 (for further inforrration se" follOWing section, also Appendices). 2 Mass Obs"r""r MO/W3816,

14

Why Do Wc Quote?

especially but not solely those in England. It is only a slice, a limited onc. But it follows the general spirit of the ethnographic studies of speaking and of writing which have led to so much insight by focussing on the actions of particular people at identifiable moments of time and place.' Here it can afford us a closer look at certain specific quoting practices of today before the more historical and comparative perspective of la\(>r chapters. The material comes partly (rom my own observations. I have lived in south-central England for many decades, interacting daily with people in the locality, reading local material, and undertilking research in Milton Keynes, the town where [ have long dwelt." As well as building on this background knowledge 1also carried out more systl'maticscruliny, reported in the following chapter. of how quotation marks were used in certain unpretentious local publications. My focus was I"ss on the prescriptions of grammilrians and other would-be gUilfdians of our language or on the conventions of academic writing so often taken as the nonn, as on the active practices of ordinary communicating. More important however have been the observations and reflections of others. Some of these have been gathered informally, some others come from a large·scale Oxford University p[('Ss online survey in 2oo6.~ But by filr the most extensive source for these two chapters lies in the focused commentaries on quoting and quotations written by some two hundred individuals in late 2006 and early 2007. The contributors werl' members of a semi-permanent panel of volunteer writers set up by the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex. Over many years these writers hilve been sending in rl'gular reports on their l'xperil'nces and observations, writing in free form in response to a series of looselyorganised queries known as .dire'cli vcs' (Fig. 2.1 illustrates the start of one return). I'redominilntly living in England, the insights and comml'nts of these reflective participant observers run through this volume and occupy the central place in Chapters 2 and 3. 6 3 On the ethnography of speaking and writing togetherwilh the general approach to m('thodology in this book see AppendiX I. 4 Apart from a few periods abroad my home has ~en in Milton Keynes since 1969 My ear!i('r research in th(' locality chiefly focuS<'d on amn\('ur musical activities and, later, on perwnal narratives (Finnegan 198912007, 1998). 5 The Oxford Unil'('rsity Press Modem Quotations Dictionaries Survey was conducted as part of the preparation for the 3rd edition of the O.lfard DictioJlary ofModem Q"i>lati",,,, (2007). It consisted of an onJine 'lue,tionnaire which drew nearly 1500 respondents in 2006. 6 Sff Appendix 2 for mOre infonnation about mem~rs d the panel, also for further

2. Tastes of the Present

15

The backgrounds, interests and occupations of these writers were varied, as were their ages. Thcre was some imbalance in favour of SouthEast England, uf women .md uf ulder writers. The slight age weighting actually lurned oul not wholly a disadvantage. The longer experience of older commentators brought a valuable perspective, further aided by their reflections on recurrent life cydes over several generations, extending the experience back 10 the mid-twentieth century; in some cases beyond. And since the 'here and now' inevltabl y contains not just cu rrent activities but people's longer memoriL'S - of peculiar significancL' in the context of quuting - this time span enabled greater insights into the patterns of bolh ch,mge and continuity that undcrlie contemporary lives. So though this cannot be a full ethnography of people's quoting practices and cuncepts even within the relatively limited temporal and geographical span of latc twentieth- and early twenty-first-century England, it does focus down on a series of actual people operating today. What they do, the institutiuns and products they engage with, their rdlcctiuns un quoting and the practices they comment on - all these provide a slice of life that will certainly not be 'typical' of what happens the world owr, nor make up a single uniform system even within its ('wn setting. Indeed what gives these accounts their particular value is their diversity. But at the least it represents one glimpse into liwd and activated practices, supported by the commentators' preparedness to L'xp<JIiate not only on their observaliuns but on their own personill experiences and individual viewpoints - 'lnd, as extensively quoted here, in their own words. 7

2.2. What are people quoting today? The picture drawn by these cummentaturs of buth thL'ir uwn experiencL'S and their observations of others was no simple one, and the ilspecls they chose to stress were diverse. There were indeed some recurrent p.ltterns, but also marked contrasts and (tu me) sume surprisL'S. A few took quite a negative view. Quoting was a subject on which some had little 10 say, but others emph'lt1cally reacted against. 'Quotes bring me background the Mass Observation website wwwmassobs_org_uklindex.htm/. 7 Throughout this and the follOWing chapter all quotations, unless oth"rwise identi· fied or clearly from som~ other source, are from members of th~ Mass Observation pand consulted in autumn 2006. Lunger quutations, but not all short phras"s, arc allribut~d to specific authors und~r their ood~ numbers (e.g. MO/S2207); for further detail On the individuals se" AppendiX 2.

16

Why Do Wc Quote?

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2. Tastes of the Present

17

out In a rash', said one, or, again, 'bloody daft!'. Others again held that quoting was not in practice widespre,ld. 'I don't think your average person quotes much at <111' was one assessml'nt, 'leachers, preachers and the like do though', or, from another t'm not SUI"<: if I 'juote very much in e\'eryday hfe. It's something I associatt with prepared speeches and talks or the days when I mugged up quotes for exams and made sure to stick thEm all in so that the examiner ",ould lhink I'd ""dU wiucly (M0/52207). o

Mure sweeping still was a part-timl' writer's assessment: I am not aware of quoting people ... I asked a few friends, and none of them set any store by whal other people said. nor could they recall hearing anything worthy of ....,membcring or "'peating! (MO/K798). A number fell that others might quote but it was not something they did much themselves: 'I'm not.1 person that spends a lot of time quoting others', 'I am aware thilt I do occasionilllv quote but I do not make a habit of it', or, moT(' spL'Cifically; '1lenve it to the wife'. Older or widowed commentators sometimes said they had little occasion to quote since they no longer interacted much with others, while another dismissed it with '[ prefer to say something onginnl'. Many however reckoned that they and others did indeed quote - but often without being aware of it. Again and again people commented that 'I suppose when I think about it, r quote almost every day', '1 hadn't quite realised it before, but I do use quite a lot of quotations in general conversation and so does the rest of my family', or 'Quotations do creep into my convcrsiltion - rather more thiln I thought, in fact'. A housing officer noted that until asked about it I didn't realise how oftl.'n myself and o:hers do quote in day to day speech. From films, songs, poems, scripture, Shakespeare, speeches, advertising, nursery rhymes and even quoting other friends own cntchphrases (M0/5375O) while a housewife who began 'I don't consciously quote as such .. : later added that over Christmas '[ had found myself saying: "I'm all behind like the donkey's tail", "It never rains but it pours", "Wh
18

Why Do Wc Quote? Many hesitated over what counted as <Juoting or pointed out that certain

'quotations' were now embedded in the language. 'I am not conscious of ever using quotations but [ suppose [ must do from timl' to time' wrote an ex·civil servant (Fig. 2.1), instancing Shakespeare lines or sayings like 'Time ,md tide wait for no man'. A young man on a factory production line who didn't think he quoted much w('nt on 'I could be wrong. It's easy to pick up bits of language without noticing', while the adminislriltor who started off 'I would have said that I don't quote much' then reflected that the problem with making such a statement is thd so many well-known English 'luotations (the Bible, Shakespear", other literature) have been subsumed into the language and we hardly rffogmze them even as we're saying them, except as a faint echo or a kind of ddion which is not our normal speech... So 1think it would be more truthful to say that I do 'luote (and misquote) iI lot, but that most of the lime I den't realize I'm doing it (MOIB3227). This subterranean dimension seemed Widely accepted as onc of the complexities of quoting. It came through too in general comments like the social worker's conclusion that most people probably quoted without realising it, and, from a retired film editor, I think most people 'luote (and TI-'(:ognise 'luotel) in a generally casual WiI); often without knOWing Or caring particularly about the s.ource of the quotation, or its original sense, or its ac<:uraey - or even the fact that it may be a 'luotalion in the first place (MO/Hl541). Other commentators were confident that people did indeed quote, and knew they wel"(' doing so. 'We all do it! Probably Adam and Eve did it'. Many cited their own pr
What they quoted however turned out to Ix- quite varicd. Some had wide interests. One housewife in her 60s described herself
2. Tastes of the Present

19

quotations, both spoken .md written, from 'Family sayings, Newspapers, Biblical notes. Literature quotes, and Rcferl'ncl' books', iLlso quotations like 'Look afkr thl' penniL'S and thl' pounds will take care of themsl'lVL'S' when speaking to her daughter. A retired nurse quoted 'ShakL'Speare (from school), French poetry (ditto), the Bible (if appropriate), and jokes or quips from other people', and a middle·aged customer service advisor was 'nlways quoting' from my Gran, my stepfather, (both long sine<' dead), co-workers, my favourite authors, especialll' aphorisms I come across that I like. Jonathan Carroll is particularll' adept with these. I also like the philosophy of M, a co-worker: The secret of a happy lik? 'Low eXpi'ctalion and a high boredom threshold' (MO/D3157). Others were more selective. For another ex·nurse it was 'the Bible or prayer book', while an ndministriltor repeated stori~ but not proverbs and rarely quoted J'L'Ople; she tried to tell jokes but was 'magnifiC<'ntly awful ilt it'. A retired headmistress didn't quote 'other people' hut was eloquent ilbout proverbs and filvouritc ShakCSpeilfC quotes, By contrast the middle-aged oommentiltor who had found quot,lIions creeping unawares into her conversation continued I don't mean literary quotations; the ones that g<'lused a~ain and a~ain arc almost exclusively of the 'family joke' Iypi', and usually amusing in some way (or intended to be)... r [don'tl use 'formal' guo:ations ,"cry ofl<:n (MOIG3423) A retired compilJly executive was emphatic that he didn't quote Shakespeaf(' 'because I've never had much time for him' or the Bible 'because I've never studied it'. A 25-year-old secretary ilgreed: When speaking I would say the main things I guote;lre conversations I've had wilh other people, and items I've seen On the TV, in the paper Or On Ihe internet. I can't imagine 1would ever guote the bible (as I wasn't broughllo follow a religion I ha\'e trouble keeping up with even the Lord's I'r.lycr). I gcnerally don't havc" good mcmory forthing~ like jokes and poems, ~ again I'm unlikely 10 quote these (1\10/039511). Another explilined she spent little time quoting others, bUI that if she did it would be 'conversations [' vc had with someone, newspaper headlines, or filmily S,lyings, or... from books'. A retired shop keeper w"s interested in 'cliches' but 'nol erudite sufficiently to quote authors, the bible or poems'. Different yet ,lgain was the middle-aged staff recruiter who strongly objected to most forms of quoting but was devoted to sources from Tai Chi ilnd Hare Krishna, or the widow in Fig, 2.2 who started off 'Being only half educated and alate devcloper, I c,ln't say I quote Ihe Bible, Shakespeare or poems', but then went on 10 write out il much-loved poem.

20

Why Do Wc Quote?

Fig. 2.2 An 85 year-old widow's quoting. Commentator from Carmarlhcn (MOfFl560). (Copyright@TheTnlstcesofthe Mass Obs~r\'ation Archil'c) Certain forms seemed to have attained special status. These were quotiltions ilssocinted with formal educational settings ilnd with 'literature', epitomised above illl by Shilkespeare. There were continual references to the Agincourt spccch (rom HCIlY.11 Vor Hamlel's To be or not to be... " and the 37-yeilr-old PA was fM from the only onc to h,we 'lots of Shakespeare flitting round my mind'. [t was Shakespeare's words thilt were most often used to exemplify quotiltions embedded in our language - 'a rose by any other name', 'oul out dilmned spot', or (ilgilin) '10 be or not 10 be'. The Bible was also continually mentioned. Biblical quotations came from bolh Old and New Testaments, including m,lny used in everyday language

2. Tastes of the Present

21

or re-expressed in proverbial-like form: 'Do unto others.. .', 'Love your nC'ighbour as you rself', 'Love your enemies'. They came amply into church settings of course but were also common in othl'r contexts. Quotations from other religiOUS traditions wef(' mentioned too, if less often than the Bible. For the Hare Krishna devotee, for example-, the original sources had special value and exact quotation from the authorised translation a matter of high importance. Also highly f('garded were ·the pocts', meaning those seen as part of the literary heritage, often tfilced back to school expl'rience. Favoured examples, usually just excerpts but occasionally the whole poem, included Walter dela Marc's 'Farewell', W. B. Yeats' 'lnnisfrcc', Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade', A. E. Housman's 'Land of Lost Content'. and (more recent) Phi lip L.lrkin's 'This Be the Verse'. Though less often mentioned than 'the pocts', certain prose writers and orators were accorded a high position, among thl'm such variegated but persistently popular figures as Oscar WildI', Omar Khyam. Winston Churchill and George Or\\'l'lI, abow all his 'All animals arc equal ... '. Individuals also had their idiosyncratic personal tastes, illustrated in such contrasting responses as: I use 'I.ay nut up for thyself... treasures On earlh' from the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament and 'Gentlemen of England' speech from Henry V. 1 use Brian Clough (soccer manage;' now sadly died) all the time. He said 'it only takcs a scmnd to score a goal'. I use it at work... 11 means keep your concentration (middle-aged teacher from Manchester, MOIG2818). I have some personal favourites such al Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentlc into that good night' and julian of Norwich - the medieval mystic 'AIl will be well and all manner of things will be well'. There are fantastic bible quotes of eoufSC which can comfort at times of sadness and slress: 'La though 1 walk through the valley of darkness [shall fear no ill' for example (pari-time classroom assistant from Brighton. MO/S2207). 'Sce th" happ}' mOron he doesn't giv~ a damn, [wish I Were a moron, My God! Perhaps I am·... Jerome K Jerome 'Love is like the measles we all have to go lhrough it' ... Woody Allen had a ralher risque quale on maslurbation 'don't knock it. its sex with SOmL'One you lo"e'. From his film 'Anni" Hall'. Another favourite is from the 'Water-B.,bies'; 'When a11th" world is young lad, and all the trees are green. and every goo;;e a swan lad. and every lass a Queen. Then hey for boot and horse lad, and round the world away. Young blood must ha I'" its course lad, and every dog its day· (retired motor trade director from Tyne and Wear, MO/G3655).

22

Wily Do We Quote?

Otl,..rs remembered quotations from their childhood. An illustrator talked fondly of his grandmother's recitations. At bJth time he and his sister wuuld be regaled with Rudyard Kipling's 'If', recited by heart, while her party pieces included il long segment from Act 4 Scene 1 of Shakespeare's Killg lo/m. delivered 'gravely and dramatically. giving a different voice to each of the parts in the plilY... in a broad Lancashirl' accent'. Quotations from these literary ilnd religious sources were illmost all in English. Onc 59-year-old did mention puzzling people with Latin quotes, and there Wl'rl' occasionill examples in uther Iangu'lgl'S based on particular personal experiences. But non-English quotations were rare - a contrast to some generations ago when classical languages might well have figured large. These somewhat elevated categories werc far from the only sources for quoting. It was striking how often songs were mentioned. There were lines from curTi'ntly popular groups, rock lyriCS, folk songs, music hall songs and many others. Somc who claimed nol to quote much still relished their capacity to song-quote. 'I never leilmt much poetry'. said onc, 'I ilm more likely to remember lines from songs', or, again, 'I like to sing songs in voices of f,wuurite singers who sang them, usually just a first line'. A middle-aged ;ournalist found it handy, if his opinion was challenged, to recall 'I'm a rock standing out in an ocean of doubt' from a Pink Floyd song while a 25-year old noted that on the factory floor Song lyrics and things from the TV are the most usuallhings to be heard quoted. More often than not, it's on('s from the past as wdl, when the oth('r p('opl(' at work wer(' young,._ People try to quole song lyrics if it is tied into what has just been said (MO!E2977). Topical sources were plentifully drawn on, as with the part-time administrator whu quuted from 'newspapers I havl' read, either headlines or articles I hilve reild within the paper ... [andl things thilt I hilve heard on the tele\'ision or radio' (MOIS3372). Films and broadcast programmes were likewise frequent sources - 'we ,111 quote from popular programml'S'. People quoted catch phrases from recent television shows, comic effects from radio, imitations from Monty Python, and phrases from the popular 'Catherine Tate shuw': 'Everywh...re you heilr people silying "Yes, but no, but yes, but no, shut up!" and "Am r bovvercd?H'. A pilTt-time registrar used quotes from film and television like 'Oh dear, how sad, never mind' (from 'It
2. Tastes of the Prescn t

23

I quote from films mercilessly. /l.1y boss has brought salmon mousse in for lunch today and I "m finding it incredibly difficult to resist doing my impression of Ihe grim rc"pcr from Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life'. God save you if you sit down to watch a comedy classic with me; Monty P}1hon, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, or almosl any musical. I'll have half the lines oul just one beat ahead of them on ~reen In fact I possibly guote irritating lines mOre "ft"n than ones I lu\'e. Currently'] lo\,,, to dance. I'm a dancer' in the ridiculously Anglified tones of Nicole Kidman in the Chanel No 5 advert, h ,1 big favourite. 'Is it r"ining' I hadn't noticed... ' in the ",..,,,my; dreamy, makes-me·want-to-be-sick voice of Andi MacDowell at the end of '4 Weddings and a Funeral' is a well established claSSIc! (M015375O), A young researcher used quotations from the TV show 'Blackadder' as their irony often suited her mood: 'quoting helps to release some of the frustration I feel if I'm irritated with meetings, or with people being unnecessarily dogmatic or bureaucratic'. Newspapers and the internet were also much lapped, catchphrases for people to both quote and reacllo. 'Hug-a-hoodie', 'weapons of mass destruction', 'shock and awe' - all in onc way accepted phrases but at the same time pronounced, oMen ironically, with the special ring of someone else's words. Jokes were occasionally treated ,15 a kind of quotation. They were seldom attributed to a named author -except in the joke-fiction of phrases like 'My mother-in-law told me ... ',or 'last night at the pub someone said ... '. Jokes were in fact often explicitly ruled out. 'No jokes' was a recurrent comment, '1 always forget the punch line!'. But that presenting jokes was practised by sume did come through both in the small number who did mention them and - from another source - in a 2007 'joke survey' of Britain." 'Proverbs' on the other hand took a major pJ
24

Wily Do We Quote? Takes all sorts Ito make a worldl. Better safe than sorry. Beggars can't be choosers_ Least said [scxmest mended). Grass is always greener Ion the other side of the fence]. A rolling stone [gathNS no moss). A still tongue keeps a wise head. A bad workman always blames his tools. For the sake of a nail... Once bitten Itwice shyl. Practice what yOll preach. Actions speak louder than words. It's an ill wind Iblows nobody any goodl, Look before you leap. A bird in the hand lis worth two in the bush). You Can lead a horse to water lbut can't make him drink). What's sauce for the goose lis sauce for the ganderl. There's many a slip ['twixl the cup and the lip 1_ OthN examples again were brought in more tentatively, as perhaps

more r!Xc-nt and thus not fully 'proverbs': There's no such thing as a free lunch. Talk is cheap. Cheer up, it may never happen_ A moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips_ Never judge a mall until you have walked a mile in his moccasins, Love don't last, cooking do. Less familiar were those associated with a particular family or local ity: Bett.'r belly bost Iburst) than good stuff be lostl [of food on plate). Never throwaway your dirty waler before you ha"e some clean. Shy bairns gel naught. Slhe looks just like a monkey dressed up in blotting paper. Inoculated with a gramophone needle lof someone chatting too much I. People had differing views 3bouI whal should be included. Family sayings (discussed below) often overlapped, so did some more literary sou rces, exemplified by the ex-le3cher who wrote 1 do us,," proverbs occasionaUy, as a sort of shorthand. These are often Tolkien's own, as I have read and reread his books since I was given 'The Hobbit' for my 9th birthday. 'The job as is never started lakes long<:st to finish', There's no accounting for east and west, as we say in Br",,', 'Go not

2. Tastes of the Prescn t

25

to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes', 'I am right - when I know anything', All useful (MO/H241O). In the extensi VI' pa roem ological Iiteratu re proverbs are predo mi nantl y presented in an approving lighl. 9 The obsl'rvcrs here however were notably ambivalent. Though unly a few went so far as to describe them as a 'piece of old hokey', 'setting my teeth on edge', and 'Ugh, no -ghastly', there was often a strong strain of dis.lpproval. Proverbs were unoriginal cliches that simply stated the ubvious, 'uld-fashiuned and cunhived', 'a lazy way uf expressing a feeling or a view', or 'so "Common Sense" and conservative lhey could have been said by Sancho Panza'. This hostile reactiun WitS sumetimes traced to 'smug' establishment wisdom and copybook morality at school, or the remembered discomfiture of being al the rcrciving cnd, As an ex-librarian explained 'wc had to learn lproverbsl off by heMt at school and I think I associate them with repression! My mother had sume very Irritating maxims'. A retired executive commented feelingly Saying'A stitch in time saves nine' to someone who has just had a minor mishap is not always acccp"'d as friendl\,_ And 'A bad wurkman always blames his tools' call sound unsympathetic when one's wife says something went wrong with the cooking (MO/B2240). People particularly resented having proverbs quoted at them. 'Too annoyingly righteous most of them' was one verdict, not least 'every cloud has a silver lining' when you were in trouble. 'Proverbs always gave me the creeps when I was a child, and even now I find their hard-e)'{'d peasant wisdom unsettling. It's probilbly because people tend to quote them at you just after you've come iI terrible cropper' (MO/M3190). An illustrator now in his 60s reminisced about his disciplinarian paternal grandmother, She brought us up On a series of quotations and sayings. She had lots of them, cOI'ering el'ery situation that occurred in our daily lives. She administered them with cod liver oil in the morning, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again', she would ,ay if we failed some task. 'A stitch in time saves nine', she would utter as she sewed a button that had come adrift, 'Cleanliness is next to Godlines.', she stated as she scrubbed our ne<:ks with a loofah until they felt raw. 'Quick's the word and sharp's the action', she would say as she sent uS off with a mcssage, This is neither fishing nor mending nets nor paying the old woman her nine pence', if we were wasting time. 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be', if we wanted 9 For a recent overview sce Mieder 2004a, 2008, also further on proverbs in Chapter 6 below.

26

Wily Do We Quote? an advance on our pocket money. There were many; many more of these sayings too numerous to mention here, nearly alway~ punctuated with 'This was my mother's motto and mine as wdl' (11.10/1.2604).

Others were more positi vc and said they often quoted proverbs. Older commentators - though not onl y them - regarded them as still-valuable wisdom from the past: 'hoary quotations', 'couthy sayings', 'pearls of wisdom' or 'handed down from my parents' generation'. Proverbs were regularly wielded by parents and teachers. 'I do use proverbs on occasion to underline ,1 point to the children', said a teilching assistilnt, while a housewife in her 50s commented that they begiln turning up in her language after she became il parent: 'a useful shorthand ... good advice in a form tho1t would be eilsy for them to remember', An ex-shop manager now quoted to her children the very proverbs her parents h.ld used to her: If th"}' wey,:, called nameS at school or bullied, they wey,:, quoted 'Sticks and stones may break my bon('s but names will n('y('f hurt me'. If they were trying too hard to complete a task they were told, 'Don't run before you can walk', or 'Don't cross your bridges fx,fore you get to them', if they were looking too far ahead of things. My parents were always quoting proverbs to me. My favourite one from Dad was, 'If you can't .ay good about anyone, dnn't say nnthing at all' (MO/H260). Fnmily snyings wen' oftl'n mentiuned. There \Vns nu c1enr division between these nnd other quotes, if only becnuse almost any example CIlII be adopted within a particular group as peculiarly their own, They overlapped with proverbS, sometimes sharing the c1nimed proverbial features of brevity, balanced structure ;llld WIt. The difference was only relative and several commentators pointed to the difficulty of distinguishing them. Quotations daiml'd as family sayings perhaps tended to be more personnl, idiosyncratic, even private thnn other exnmples, less in the public domain, sometimes (not always) more fleeting, nnd usually unwritten. More important however wns the personal resonnnce with which such sayings were imbued: usually attributed to a named individual. delivered in a special tone of voice, associalt'd with some known intNpretation, person or event, and practised among intimates entitled to share their usage. Thus a number of what others might classify as 'proverbs' were claimed as family quotes, Here for exampll' is onc list of 'soml' odd quotations that the family have used in childhuod and hence mysdf tu my sons':

2. Tastes of the Prescn t

27

Don't count your chickens before they hatch, No news is good news, Less haste more speed, Ikauty is within, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It never rains but it pours, Make sure your underwear is clean in caS<' you get run over. Sticks and slon"s will break your oon"s, I:>..>t words will nev"r hurt you, Mother nature knows best, It takes a real man to cry. They are alligator tears put On for show, There is a sun behind the clouds, whate\''-'I" Ihe wealher. You need to be in my shoes before you judge. Cold hands, warn, heart. Eat your carrots to make your hair curl. Isn'l your hair lovely, you'll never n~d a perm, Many hands make light work. Cheer up, il may never happ"n, Don't walk under Ihe ladder, il will bring bad luck. Let's sing and raise the roof. Laugh & Ihe world laughs with you, cry 'md you'll wccp alone. W'hal goes around, comes around (MO/F218). A 59-y"ar-old comm"nt<'d thal sh" was ullc"rtain wtl('ther her 'moth"r's sayings' were h"r own or quoted from someon" els", Her annolat"d list included, among many others, - 'like a witch on a windy night' (used when someone or something, e. 8· the cat, is unaccountably reslles, or fidgety) - 'we're nOne of uS perfect' (Just what it says, but always said in a rather commanding tone, usually when ,omeone ha, done somelhing frightful) - 'limb of s.atan' (a term of chasti",ment, obViously, but usually used about children or misbehaving pets in a fond kind of way) . 'black as Hell's crickets' (meaning vcry dark, or filthy dirty) . 'when in doubt, act' (most similar sayings say the opposite, i e, when in doubt, don't) - 'what's needful isn't sinful' (usually said when somebody does something slightly embarrassing, like breaking wind) She continued ') find myself using most of th('Se remarks from time to time; in speech rather thiln in writing, and always prefaced by "my mother used to say" or "my moth"r always said'" (MO/F3409).

28

Wily Do We Quote?

The point seemed to be the personal association rather than whether the wording was well-known. Thus 'There's nowt so queer as folks' may have bl't'n in commun currency but for one writer it came frum his mulher and before thal hl'r mother. For another 'Bl' careful for what you ask the Gods l('St they gi\·e it you' was a well-known proverb, but as a family saying it had bl'Come juSI'Be careful' since 'I'vl'fybody knows whal's coming next'. In one family 'Boil egg' meant take three minutes away from the problem, while 'grandmother's specials' included '(;od sends the children and the deVIl S<'nds the moth"rs' (a rude comml'nt on her neighbours) and, from anolher grandmother, 'eV<'rything happens for Ihe best' - 'l1ike quuting them bec.. use they were full of wit as well as wisdom', A saying attributed 10 a particular individual was sometimes passed on through successive g('Jler'ltions. 'The["(>'s so much bad in the bl'st of us and so much good in Ihe worst of us thal it ill bchovL'S any of us to talk about the rest of us' was an admonition one woman had from her mother who'd leamed it from

ha mother -'a quute that has accomp,mied us as we have grown up and which I am very £oml of (Cillcspie 2(07), A young warehouse operative exp,lndcd on another quote: In the early 60s, my grandmother was watching Cliff Richard on television with one of her sisters - both were in their 80s. Auntie May made some ..... mark about the bulge in the singer's tight trousers, My grandmother was shock"d, Cv"n mO'" so when Aunti" said 'Well, I've still got my feelings, you know'. This has gone down in the family annals-and I hope I'm able to foHow h"r lead when I'm h"r ag':'! (MO/C3167). Or again My father frequently quoted his father, a Northampton "centric, given to sudden rages, strong Unitarian and teetotaller, so these stretch back to the turn of the last century. They reappear, eVen today, dredged up from the past, in conversation with my sister, brother, cousins - ..... membered by each one in his/h"r own unique fashion! Sister Mary walked like that Pitter-pat, pilter-pat, pitkr-pat, pitter-pal, Then came Uncle, stout and fat Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Unde Thomas, wooden leg 0 ... io... io !lut I just walk like this yew know Oh, oh, oh' Sung with actions of course, OK not PC today (MO/Nl592). Other quotations wer.., linked 10 particular S<'ttings or e\,('nls. For one it was her patl'Tn'll grandmulhl'r's sayings which h'ld become 'legendary' in thl'

2. Tastes of the Prescn t

29

family, while for another 'Look before you leap' was always associated with her brother falling into a stream. Another connected his mother's 'Stock's as good as money' with thl' 1940s whl'n, like othl'r wnrtime huusl'wives, shl' never passed an opportunity to k<'l'p her cupboard supplied. Loc.1l connections added to the evocative quality. Cockney slang was recalled affectiunately; as WilS an aunt's Irish~intlL'CIed 'TIll' divil eyes you' when you were thinking of doing something naughty (Gillespie 20(7). An ex-snles assistant in Yorkshire quoted the tongue-in-ehcck . Yorkshire tykes motto' See all, hear all, say nowl (nothing). Eat all, sup (drink) all, pay nowl And if tha (you) does owl (somelhing) fornowl Allus (a Iways) do it for Ihisen (you rself) followed by other diale.:t sayings beloved in her family like 'Ee'd eat t'oven if it t'were buttered' if someone looked hungry, or, of somlired shop manager recnlkod her mother's 'bcsr qUOtL' as 'It's stuck like shit to a blanket', still used by Ihe nexl gener'ltion wh€re "'mum's onc" always raised a laugh', Anotherphrasc was only 'when I'm talking 10 my partner, lx'Causc it skirts the borders of aCct'J'tability... nOI rt'P"atable here, unfortunately!'. Similarly with the 'My arse and p'llSley' saying - 'my alml ... was really a very polite woman so you definitely knew you were in trouble when)Uu heard hersay this!' Quotations could act as a private currency Octween intimates. A married pair's unflattering descriptions of pL'Ople's appear,met' were quuted nnd rL"-quoted between them: 'A face like a bilg of SPMners' or 'like a bulldog chewing a wasp', or, more elaborately; 'Park y('r bike, sir' of a buxom woman's cleavage; 'If her chest is spectacular enough, lhe fL'SponS<' will be 'Bike? You could park a tractor in there!'. For Mother pair, the emphatically pronounced 'It makes me sick' was first heard from a fathl'r bul now 'trotted out by both of us on a Cl'gular basis'. A widowed part-time librarian recalled quotl'S shaTl'd wilh her laIc husbMd My Falher in l~w us<:d Ihe phn,e '11 wa5 swimming' which apparently his own Mother had often used to him - if he caught a cold then she would say'lt was swimming' (Ihal caused i1]. This has become a family joke and

Wily Do We Quote?

30

any unfortunate situation might provoke the comment 'It was swimming'. I suppOS" "''0 used to quote things that other people had said "'hich had made us laugh at the time. My husband invited a Gcnnan friend ",ho was teaching ",ith him 10 come and stay with us for a day Or two during on.. of the school hohdays to which R replied: 'Thank you very much but I prefer to go to Scotland' (MO/H2637). A quutatiuns language could thus develop amung small in-groups, pronounced and und..rstood with ovcrtones peculiar 10 themselves. Co-workers shared familiar quotes, 'student-style calchphrases' circulated, and within a group 'particular quotatiuns recall a certain iuke ur situation'. Among close ftiends, colleagllesor family a 'common stock of "references" ... can be quickly recognised when quoted or, as is more usual. alluded to in the course uf a cunversatiun, a letter ur an e·mail'. Such sayings were perhaps more short-lived than many family sayings, but ilt a given point c1earlyevocative forthei r co-particip,llIts. Time and again pMple mentioned quoting and re-quoting personal sayings among themsdvcs, becoming, as one summed i1l1p, 'a comforting ptivate language and, I suppose, il kind of verbal shorthand between people who know each other well' . ..... " ........

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2. Tastes of the Prescn t

31

Shading into such examples were more recent sayings and con versations. Someone's words or interchanges, whether from live or overheard conversations, or (overlapping with these) frum reports in newspilpers or other media, were repeated onwards by someone else, acknowledging that the words were not their own. These were more onc-off than family silyings: recent reports rather than seen as originating from the past. They sometimes acquired illonger life, but many were ephemeral, suited just to particular OCC'ISlOns. Nevertheless they were experienced as quotes of a sort - your own voice repealing, deliberately, what someone else had said. Repetitions of passing personal remarks may seem filr distant from the 'official' (luot,1tions with which we started - and so indeed some commentators felt. But reproducing the words of others is after all a f,lmiliilr pattern in both true iIIId fictional narrative, and iI familiar part of everydny liVing. The commentators here made profuse references to rt'peating conversations and recent r('mark. by other p('opl<'. Even those who reckoned Ih('y did little 'formal' quoting spoke of reproducing conversations - like Ihe classroom assistant who initially envisage(l quotes as something for examinations, but quickly ,ldded Ihat she did 'repeat importilnt conversillions - what womiln doesn't - to my husband for eXilmple, to updiltc him on family ncws'. A secretolfy was typiC,ll of many: VVhen speaking I would 5
32

Wily Do We Quote? restaurant and said: 'You waiting for a security job here, mate?' I' had to laugh when I told her. 'Such are the drops of lubricant', he concluded, 'that oil the days of older

people who don't gct out and nbout as much as they uscd to' (MOro 1654). Such quoting leant towards the more mnlleable end of the continuum between variability and fixity. Several commentators mentioned they did not always repeat exactly but reported thc gist of what someone had said. Some situations however demanded verbal accuracy. Where the exact meaning was imperative it had to be repeated 'word for word', and as a civil servant put it, I will quote others dire<:t1y; in recounting a conver>alion, if what Iheysaid was interesting Or amusing, Or when it's important 10 con""y thdr actual words (for example, when inslnlclions have IX'Cn expressed ambiguously and there may be doubt over whal is intended) (MO,IM3190). Several mentioned a professional duty to reproduce exactly what others had Solid, whether orally or in writing, like a SOCi,l] worker's duty 'to keep dear and accurate records' of feedback from clients and colleagues. 11ll're was the further twist that as 'an old manager of mine said (and I <juote) "if it's not written down it didn't happen'''. Not all <juoting was in serious contexts. lndeed one theme was the enjoym(>nt verbal repetitions could bring. Quoting people was a way of highlighting some expression for discussion or amusement, 'particularly if it was funny or controversial what th(>y have said or even what they said was incompreh(>nsible'. Mimicry and, through this, a kind of indirect social commentary could come in too. The retired newspaper manager expanded his earlier comments with My daughter's sister-in-Iaws meet daily at the home of their mother and are joined by my daughter some days. I' and I have called on occasion and the two sisters-in-law are usually in full flow about some juicy tidbit th"y have read in the 'redtop' newspapers. I am sure that if what they had to say was to be animaled by Disney's studios the dialogue would emerge as words as sharp as lightning strikes; words in big bl~ek capitals or quivering italics - all peppered with a veritabl" fusillad" of t"xploding exclamation marks and de1i\'ered in a breath-taking crash of cymbals and kettle drums' (MO!B1654).

ThL'Se varied repetitions of others' words and dialogues were redolent of the mullivoiced dramas of everyday human interaction and at the same time a mode of commenlingon them. whether with ridicule, affection or exasperation.

2. Tastes of the Prescn t

33

What people reported themselves as <Juoting thus covered a wide range. And indL'Cd one of the main things 10 emerge from both my own ubservations and thosl' of the cummentators here W,lS thl' diversity of their choices. Some liked proverbs, some didn't; some quoted conversations or people Ihey knew. others thought that boring; some liked 'literary' quotatiuns and pitied Ihosl.' whu didn't. Others had tastes Ihat even they regarded as idiosyncratic, like the software analyst whuse propenSity to quote from films was 'probably my worst habit. .. or most endearing fl'alure, depending upon your viewpoint'. Some f,lVoured tl'k'vision or radio quotes, others regarded these as too 'hackneyed'. Some emphasised 'famous' quotations, olhers emphaticillly not. The sou rces for others' words werl.' multifarious, from Lalin tags, famous pods, historical figures or the Bible, to ephemeral conversatiuns or 'my husband said', along a multifurm continuum of greater or lesser endurance. crystallisation, and public recognition.

2.3. Gathering and storing quotations These quotations did not come from nowhere. They were not just frl't'· floating in the air, nor were the choices among them automatic. So what were the prOCesSL'S by which people acqUired and nccessed them? This was not nltogether clear, but some indicntions emerge from the mass observer commentators. Sometimes, it seemed, it was quite formalised. Many looked back to school or college as the foundation for at least some of thl'ir quotations. This could be supplemented by later reading or learning along similar lines, moulded by the earlier experience of wordings that counted as quotable. Some recalled learning by heart at school, often of quite lengthy passagL'S. A few had seemingly remarkable memories for quoted words which the}' continued to augment throughout their li ves. Some individuals had built extensive and deliberately cultivated personal repertoirl'S. A former social worker spoke of 'all those classics learned painstakingly by he,lrt at school, supported by poems, speeches Il.'arned I,lter in life fur spL'Cific purposes', giving her a 'repl·rtoire uf quotations always to hand'. So too wilh the Lancashire grandmother's capacity to recite Rudyard Kipling's 'If' and large sections of Shakespe;ue - in her case' all the more astunishing because she left school at the age of ten'. For a retired teacher, quotations from the Bible, Shakespeare or the

34

Wily Do We Quote?

poets hild become 'just pilrt of my mind, that [ don't hilve to think. I've also liked podry, and learned great swathes of it, and those poems come to mind'. But many quotations were acquired less delib~ratc1y, in the course of personal action and experience. Many commentators deplored their 'poor memory'. By this they meant, it sCl>mcd, a perceiwd incapacity to learn off lengthy quotations from what was regarded as the learned tradition, as in 'I only quote whilt I have been brought up with as a child, J have no memory for poems, Shakespeare ete'. But other institutions besides school could provide a setting for acquiring specific kinds of quotations. Work, spedal interest groups, playground, peer groups and religious organisations - all could be fertile sources for repeated quotes. People picked up topical catch phrases or sayings l'mergent in the interaction of close groups, varying at di fferent life phases, among them quotations specific to particular localities, diale<:ts or families. There was il widespreild recognition thilt some quotations hild become part of current language, known in a vague way by more or less everyone, Several also spoke of latent memories that could come to the surface when needl'd. A saying from 'the Bible, Buddhism or as is usual for mc, a long forgotten source, just pops out of my mind'. The same image came in another's explanation thn! he didn't have a store IJf quotes but would just use onc that 'pops into my head ilt the time'. It was noteworthy how many emphasised the past as the origin for their quotations. With topical quotes, current cliches or repeats of recent conversations this was of course less marked - Olle reason perhaps why some people were doubtful of their status as 'proper' quotations, But mostly the association with the past was something to prize: a repository of wisdom, to which peopll> could still turn today. For some this lay in the words of great thinkers and writers of the past, or in ancient (or presumed ancient) proverbs 'handed down for hundreds of years'. A former lecturer found herself quoting her parents or grandparents since 'some things remain constan!. .. I suppose I like to quote another generation because whilt they silid made sense te me as well as to them', Or again It is going to sound daft, but I always feel a connection to the Wisdom of people through the ages. I know it is a bit soppy, but proverbs
2. Tastes of the Prescn t

35

A retired nursery nurse similarly comment...d that she had st-"\'n from books of quotations that throughout the ages prople Wt'T'C' quoting or hnnding down in stont'S to the futurt, generiltions... just as up to dilte fur todily's waders', as in 'To do a Uth" talking and not willing to Iistm is a form uf grL,,"d'. Sth-6th d'Jltury 'The secret of being a bore is to tell eveT)1hing'. Voltaire {M0Il1610). Quotiltions bring people together, she added, 'we have philosophers from all race:; to draw on, to help understand their thinkin& and gel along'. It

WilS

not just undifferentiated 'wisdom from the past', for many saw it

through personal eyes. They recalled when they had first heard a particular quote, or traced it back to family tradition or individual named people in the past. A retired company dirL"Ctor discussing his favourite quotes especially liked 'No news is good news', one of his grandmother's most used quotations: she had arrived as a Polish refugee in 1905 and though she never mastered English 'she did say this'. A retired registrar's source WilS her mother (now de..d), so she 'always prefaced [the quotation I by "my mother used to say" or "my mother always said" , .. It would somehow seem wfong... not to acknowledge where the words came from'. Another's favourite quott'S came from older generiltiuns uf the family whose remarks 'live in our memories today and wc recall them with affection', Similarly The pcn;on 1mosllikc 10 quc*c is my late falher be<;au~ he had a funny and belling turn of phrase, n"ver t'rllircly true but rarely wide of the mark: Ofl Polish prommdation compared with English, 'In English it sJX'lled butter, pronounced 'batter', but when you cat it, it bloody margarine l ' ... I like, too, my mother, who has a mo,"" local way: about a neighbour alwars winning at bingo, 'She'd not b"" wet if she ft'll ID dock, that one!· ... And mr faVO.lrit.-., when as kids we askt'" for mooeyfor sweets, 'What do you think you're on, your father's yachl!'(MO!F385/J). The link to the past was especially pojgn,mt if the quotation came from someone now dead. There were frequent comments like 'family members, espeCially long depilrted ones, arc... remembered by quoting things they said', or quoting a dead father 'followed by 'As Dad would say". I think it's comforting saying things that remind us of pilople we love when they're not with us'. For une writer, quuting her mother was 'a way uf remembering her' and of reminding her own children of her, while another who as a child had been bored by her gr,mdmother's quoting now sht' was dead was enjoying 'heilfing ht'r voice in my head silying thL'Se pointless littll' things·. Another woke up laughing one morning because t'd been remembering my father's words a 101 the previous day (and obViously during my sleep). tf you told him, for instance, Ihat }'ou'd had a

36

Wily Do We Quote? rise at work but it wasn't as much as you'd hoped for, he'd say 'better than a smack in the face with a wet kipper' '" I still use these qllOtations today (MO!D1602). The associations were not always rosy, A 70-year-old spoke of quoting

'my grandmother (lovingly) lmd my mother (with eX<1spcr<1tion)'. <1nd <1 middle-aged administrator cxpn---sscd his ambivalence about cert<1in family quotations: I am aware of deliberately quoting him Im}' fatlterl, I'm not sure how genuine this IS: it sometimes strikes me as a rather bogus tendency. Before he b«:ame ill, our relationship wa, not particularly g<x>d, and I wonder whether I am wib'tfully attempting to suggest to oth"r people a closeness that did not then exist but might by now - who knows? Maternal grandmother - unhappy, unloving 'Oh, don't bother', Now we say, 'Oh, don't bother: in a comical version of this VOice; although what it really commemorates is a troubling, unsatisfactory relationship, I suppose maklllg a joke of it exorcizes some of the unhappiness of that relationship (MOfBJ227),

Sometimes the once-hard memories were later re-interpreted In a warmer light, The grandmother who quoted harsh proverbs as she scru bbcd her young grandson's neck was by his 60s being rccalled more positively, Her strong influence prepared us for life. taught us how to be selfsufficient and adapt to any situation we found ourselves in. Even today if I'm templed to take a short cut in accomplishing 11 household chore, Grandmother's words spring to mind, 'If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well, that's my mother's motto and mine as well' (MO/L2604), The link to the past through quotations was repeatedly pictured as continuing through the generations, A retired teacher rejoiced in its 'true consistency' when she he'lfd her son quuting 'to his sun, something that I'd quoted to him, that had been quoted by my mother', A middle-aged administrator remembered being annoyed as a child by her Catholic muther's 'We're all in the dark like il Prutestant Bishup' if the light went off - but was now repeating it to her own children, Or again W,;, Jived with my mat,;,rna! grandparents when I was a child bdor<:'. the S,;,cond World War and [ can wdl remember my gmndfath,;,r giving m}' mother the benefit of his wisdom at the dinner table when I was proving difficult over a meal. He told my mother not 10 worry. 'Liltle children', he said, Winking al mc, 'a", like little pigs: they cat httle and ofkn'. And noW I have my own grandchildren silting at my table on occasion and I fmd myself quoting the self-same advice to my daughter when the lillle ones push their plates away (MO/B1654).

2. Tastes of the Prescn t

37

Besides coming down through personal chains quotations were also known from being displayl'd on mnterial objects, They appeared on tapestries, copybook headings, rdigious sites, framed illustrations. Others were in graffiti or street displays (onc quoted the Belfast wall's 'Fuck the Pope / Who would want to?'). Sevcralwriters drew attention to the current filshion for short sayings, quips and quotes 011 fridge magnets, ornaments, cards, doors, wall hangers, tee shirts calligrdphic displays. One childhood bnthroom hnd hMI RUdyard Kipling's 'If' on the wall, nnother iI framed poster for World War 11 with 'Keep Cillrn and Carry On', which later became 'something of a mantra' in the household. Some people went out of their wily to record quotations for personnl use or reflection. One npproach was to write down occasionill quotes. Others, howeVl'r, had compiled extensive personal collections, to ,In extent thnt surprised me (I hild thought such compiJiltions largely n thing of the pilSt). Several commentntors said they had spcciill places for writing down quotations that struck a chord with them, often describing these as their 'commonplace books'. An ex-snles assistant gathered quotations from calendars or the 'saying for the day' in the daily newspaper ('soothing comforting words to help you along lifl"s way'), and a retired school inspector described how she wrote quotations from books or articles she had read or from radio programmes she had heard in a kind of commonplace book where I also copy poems that I have discovered. Here are some to give you a flav(J.Ir: 'A nuisance is only an "d"enlure wrongly considered'. - GK Cheslerton 'When you dine with a rich man you cnd up paying the bill' - Hungarian saying (MO/M1979).

A man in his 70s had a 'bulging file which I h,we christened "Verse and Worse'" that he hoped to bring it out in a private publication, while a retired youth worker had for years written into his commonplace book quotations he had come across Ihat summed up a thought or feeling 'much better than [ CQuld have done', An ex-te<1cher had kept her 'Quotation Book' since she was 9, starting from writing out poetry ilt school as il handwriting exercise: 'I kept my folder. This "book" is now 5 files'. Th,ltlhis practice was nol confined to the older generation was illustrated by the 22 year-old who kept a special book for quotations, writing down ones that 'meiln something special to mc, and [like to know thal I can re-read them if and when [ want'. Another source for others' words was through locating them in places where they had already been sell-cled a..~ quotations, Some day-by-day

38

Wily Do We Quote?

diaries display a quote for each date, and most newspapers and magazines have a quotations section - a popular source to glance at in passing or sumetimes draw un mure rq;ularly. Thus A ,;<,ction I am immediately drawn to when I ",cl'i\'e [my w~~kly neWS digest) each week is the section entitled 'Wit and Wisdom'. This section includes quotes that arc found in newspa~rs during the course of the previous week. It includes such quoles as, 'The mean,ng of hI',:, is that it stops' (Kafka, quoted in 17", l"d"l"'"d"flt) and 'A man'" dying is more the "urvivor's affair than his own' (fhomas Mann, guoled in The l"d"I"',ldeut). ane that I really like is a quote from Margaret Atwood, quoted in TIle G,mrdiafl: 'Wanting to meet a writer be<:ause you like their books is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate' (MO/t2604). Then there were the printed quot.ltions colle<:tions. These are Widespread in Britain, plentifully adorn the reference sections of libr
2. Tastes of the Prescn t

39

Books on QuotatiOM 10

We have eleven books on the bcJoksllctves II home that are devoted IQ qllOUllioos, this must be an indication of our enthusiasm for quotalions. These books include: """""..... O-I~._"",,", ,.. _

..
. -""'.1911

r-...,.'1/II<_ ~ ..... Or f _ F_ M..,.".. Mo
a-.-.....""__ .-'"
~_.

_ _ .c...O!
S!lG.w_O'....... '_10,0)'.11092.

C_iuDot.-.,-¥Q"

..

,.._"'-In._
,.. ,._e--wv..-,.ofbt -"IUl.

.... w

.,,_~.

W""."-K-."-

_ _ ... 0...0. W _

l.Cluomb
A ~ 'If _IUIQooo.or_'.~.. lA a.fIofIOIId _ F.A_ ' 1 / 1"1.

A""'""'*"""'..-......... er-...-... .. _.OUI'.''''

""'e-....oy...J~.~ ~

~.J.

;\.--.-, ~ _ " ' ~_ .... w..,.oopI .. lI..... ~ Coo"'"

,'*'

Co. 'oIl.

My favourite llmona lhese is Ihe Slevuuon's 8ot!k o[QuQUltiow; which has 2.811 pates of quotlllions, 11 veril.Rble treasu~ tro'·e. We also have the huge and magnilicenl edition of John BllI1Jcn's A Camp/ele Concordonceo[Vuballndu to Words, Phrases and Pa.<sagts In Ihe Dramalle WOrM ofShIJ~ptare with a Supplementary C,,/lCo,dollCe 10.the P<Jt.=, publishcl by Ma<:millilll ill 1963. This has 1,910 pages. I subscribe 10 a magnine entitled The Week. which is an A4 digest oftlx: w«k', ne",:s drawn from several ne....-spapers, including Brilish and Foreign medii. A S«1ion [am immediately drawn 10 when I ~eeive;1 each week is the seclion enlitled 'Wit and Wisdom'. This sel:lion iocludes quotes that are fOUl'1d in newspapell during the eOtrn<e of the previous week. [I ineh.. des such quole, e: 'Tbc mea.nillg of life is that il slops' (Kaf\
Fig. 2.4 A I~rge collection of '1uol~lion books. and ex-academic from south cast England (MO/L2604) (Copyright ~ The Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive)

l1lustr~lor

ideas for stories or book titlcs, or a message in ,1 greetings card or letter. People searched collections for ideas for a formal speech, a wedding or work pTesentatiun, while a long-time member of a local debating society 'inevililbly' turned 10 his books of quotation 'to sce what greilter minds than mine have had to say on a particular motion. I'm rarely disappointed'. Colk·ctions were alsu browsed for personal enjoyment and inspiration, as with the retired nurse who h,ld several collections bought dUring her 205 that she 'would enjoy reading again and again'. Se\'eral described being led un beyond their initial purpose: 'once one opens it, it is often hard to put

40

Wily Do We Quote?

down - one thing leads 10 another' or, in a lengthier reflection, , now have half a do?cn [book5 of 'luotation5[ and invariably find that when I consult them, without fail I find myself some twenty minutes Or so later, sewral pages further on and engrossed in what others have to say about a topk which has no relevance to what I was originally searching (MO/H2634).

All this suggests widespread achy(' usage, and indeed Ihis range of

uses was borne out by the returns from the Oxford University Press online questionnaire on quotations dictionaries in 2006. But there was another side to iltoo. That same survey, complekd by nearly 1500 people, found thnt nearly three-fifths did not own any dictionary of quotations at all. Similarly llmong the commentators from the mass observation pllncl very mnny either did not mention such collections at llll or L'Xplicitly sllid they did not possess one. Sometimes this was because they preferred the intemet; as one noted hard copy collections were unhelpful for rock lyrics and song lines. For another, published collections seemed unnecessary since 'proverbs and quotations get locked in our brains, so we don't need books to learn them'. A common reaction was 'I was going to say that I don't hnve any books of quotations, then checked my bookshelves, I have two!', while others thought they might perhaps have one somewhere but could not find it or rem(>rT\her last using it. Those who discovered they did possess onc often explilined they hild got it as a school prize, inherited it or received it as a free gift. It had often bem a present but seldom looked at: 'still in its wrapper', 'I wouldn't have bought litJ for myself', and 'it's the sorl of thing that gels given'. Many were in fact actively hostile to quotiltions collections and ilHributed dispilTilging motives to those who used them. 'To impress I should think. Politicians, poseurs, people who like to give an imprL'Ssion of being well read'; 'It's a bit pretentious 10 look up a quotation sothill you Ciln use it when the occasion arises'; 'Surely people arc capnble of some original thoughts?', Or ag.lin J don't own any books of quotations and I can't ~aJJy understand why people do. J suppose if you teach or are a student of certain subjects (e.g. hi5tor}, literature) then you would U5e onc. Also, I 5UPPOse people mighl lik.. 10 learn quot"s to imp~ss like-mindl'd people at dinMr parties and such like {25 year-old scc~tary, MO/D3958).

Such reaclion5 rightly remind us that the sheer facI of publication does not in itself prove usage or close acquaint,lnce. 11 seemed Ihat quotations

2. Tastes of the Presen t coll('ctions

\I!('r('

41

oft('n r('gard('d as pr('stigious and r('put1lbl(' valuabl('s -

good 1IS 11 gift and (p('rhaps) symbol of the learned literary culture, but not of much dirl'<:t use to the poss('ssor. It is tru(' th,lt most comm('ntator.; r('cognis('d th(' ('xist('nc(' of such coll('ctions - in itself worth noting - ,lnd for some people they clearly did play a part in their active engagement with quotation. But for most p('opl(' they c('rtainl y could not be assumed to take prec('denc(' over sources lik(' the memories built up from school and Inter rending, material displnys, mdividually constructed commonplace books, illld echoed voices from the past ch,uged with personal meaning.

3. Putting Others' Words on Stage: Arts and Ambiguities of Today's Quoting

I probably put all the quotation marks, astt'r.sks etc whe~ they should not be, but I use them to illustrate the intensity of the sentences (Rctin:d slidc library assistant in her 70s from Hamp,hirej'. I don', really approve oflardmg colwersalion with loo many quotations and allusions - the}/,.., like seasonings and spices, doying wh,," they", overdone {Middle-aged civil servant. North-East Englandjl. Should I have put that In quotes? (Retired semor business executive in cathedral CIty, southern England)'

What people quoted and how they found their quotations was onc aspect of <Juo!;ng in today's here and now. But therl' are also the questions of how

and when people engage in quoting. wh
3.1. Signalling quotation How are others' words and voices recognised? A key device for making something a quotation - unambiguously one might think - is fur it to N' scparilted out from the surrounding words by some ilccepted sign, The signills variously described as .quotation marks'•. quote marks'. 'speech marks' or 'inverted cummas' provide an apparently straightforward and 1 MO/HI/MS.

21\10/1\13190. 3 MO/82240.

44

Why Do Wc Quote?

u ncontentious means for doing this. Here is the device that puts a particular chunk of words on stage - an apparently assured and logical system for dealing with quuting, and for ddining it, validated by the rules of grammar and educational prescription. But things look rather different if wc move from this to people's active practices in the here and now of early tWl'nty-first-century Britain. Just how such signs were actually used 'llld understood proved to be neither uniform nor settled. As far as the participant observers from the mass observation panel were concerned, there was considerable diversity, and doubts as well as positive assertion. Before mOVing to their commentilf;es however, let me first illustrate something of the variety from some observed exampk'S in my own town during the same period. First, quoting marks in a local church magazinc, Thil' alii! Tllal. 4 This was a carefully-edited if unpretentious 8-10 page typescript, circulated monthly in both hardcopy and email attachment to those associated with il city centre ecumcnicill chu rch in Milton Keyncs. It contained news, information, articles and discussion, its contributors well used to writing and the written word. In its p,lges could be observed both recurrent patterns and marked diwrsities. Double or single inwrted commas usually enclosed direct repetitions of passages from publish..d ur wdl-known works like hymns or the Bibk, or of words someone else had said. Thus wc read <Jesus says to the disciples, "Why.ue you afraid?"> (I am using < > to mink the l·xamples so as to reproduce the quote marks of the originill). Inverted commas were also used for drawing ilttention to particular words, marking out a word or phrase .1S some kind of titk, or words that were echo..d frum clsewherl', possessed some semitechnical, metaphorical or inner meaning (ilS in <"buzz groups">; <wc arc 'whole-' beings with emotions>; ; <"true worship">; or detained after he hild <'borrowed' a bike». So far, so familiar - but the inconsistencies were equally noticeable. It was \lllpredictable whether doubl .. or single marks would be used. There were mixtures in the same issue, cven the Silmc article. Whether or not quotc marks were used at all varied too. Sometimes they surrounded 4 This ,,,,d "1'1",1: The Cor"","sl""e I,,-House Magazine (ed. Brian Watson) was produced

between 2004 and 2009 forthe ecumenical Church of Christ the Cornerstone Milton Keynes. I scrutinised jts monthly issues OVer 12 months from June 2006.May 2007.

3. PuHing Others' Words on Stage

45

titles of hymns, lectures, books, films, newspapers, or organisations; sometimes not. In their absence there might or might not be other indicators such as layout (h....dings and ind..nts), special fonts lik.. italics or bold, initial c..pital letters or, occasionally, capitals throughout. In other cases again both quote marks and additional indicntors were used. Highlighting words for att..ntion was sometimes by Guole m.. rks, but also, ..Iternatively or additionally, through initial capitals or special type; thus n line from a carol was signalled by both Guote marks and lInllcs <"Born that mall 110 more may die">. The same it..m could be sign..lkd differently even within .. Single Mticle. The Children's Society appeared both plain and in Guoks within a few lines, while in the issue discussing plans for il new c<1legory of church voluntet'r there was a mix of <'church fri ..nd'> ; ; ; and just with no marker at ..11. In the local free nt'WSp,lpers, to take a second area, there was some consistency in the l'dited articles. Single quote m.. rks came in headlines ..nd most captions; double within the body of an article if repeating someone's exact (or supposedly exact) words, single for individual words or short phr..se. It w ..s noteworthy however that though misprints and sp..lling inconsistencies wcrc rare, quotation marks were cle.. r1 y less systematic.. l1 y monitored. Nol only were they not always internally consistent but op..ning quot..tion marks were not necess.. rily complemented by closing ones. And in other parts of the paper - letters, advertisements, special inserts - there was no consistency at all as between single and double marks, or tht'ir prt":>encc or .. bs..ncc. The point is not thilt either the church milgazine or the locill p..pers were in any way 'below par' productions but thnt such inconsistencies illustr..tc th.. rel ..tive I..ck of standardisation in the usag.. of quot<1lion marks in much writing today (and yesterday too no doubt). I saw similar unpredictability in letter-writing, in the blogs crowding the internet and, indeed, in the mass observers' own written responses. Even in educationill contexts there was vari ..tion. The primary school textbooks laid great emphasis on rigid rules about the correct use of inverted commas to show speech, obligatory in the n.. tional curriculum. But some insisted on single quote marks, others on double. The Silme was evident in the heilped piles of books for children and young people displayed in loc..l and national bookshops. In higher status ilnd academic-type publiciltions quotation marks were, it is true, more

46

Why Do Wc Quote?

rigorously regul
3. Puffing Others' Words on Stage

47

Fig. 3.1 'I WOlS suddenly (oostious of the quote marks'. Onc-time proof reader and later teacher of malhs from St Albans (MO/L2281) (Copyright © The Trustees of the Mass Oboervation Archive) 'Direct speech is placed with single quotation marks' (27 year-old), complemented by 'I luse] single quotatiun marks as more natural' from a 85 year-old, and a 75-year-old former social worker's practice of using 'single quotation marks always - to indicate the words somebody said'. A 71 year old acupuncturist remarked on what she viewed as her own failure: We were well taught at school about the use of quotation marks (double for direct speech) bUll have probably got rather slack and sometimes slide over into using single quotation marks (MO/H2447).

Why Do Wc Quote?

48

Some said that it depended whether they were handwriting (mostly double marks) or typing. Onc view was that double quote marks were for speech, but singll' for items like titles, highlighted words or (in some cases) quotiltions from written rather than directly spoken sources. Many expressed confidence in the single/double distinction, but applied it in differing ways. One interpretation ran I follow the convention of using"" when ~porting actual sp<'ech that I've heard. or that I've known to be locally reported. HO"'el'er, if I were quoting someone who had perhaps written a boc>k that I'd read, or who had said something not in my hearing in the past I would use only single quotes' , (MOIN3588). A nurse interpreted her own inconsistencies as carelessness I use both double and single quotes - the first to clearly define the spoken word, the other to mark titles. I can't say that I hav" "v"r \'ari"d my way of writing and ... this system seems to be generally acceptable... Having said this I have just riffled through the pages of my day-to-day diary and ha\'e found, to my a,tonishment, that my hasty entries show Iitl"s with double quotation marks. It seems that I am more careful with my word-processing (MO!B1654). Others were morl' doubtful about usagc', or felt they had not rC'illly mastl'rcd thl' rull's. There were Sl'veral comments along thl' lines of' I've newr really understood the difference between the double ilnd single quut.ltiun milfks' ur 'I du use quotation marks when I'm writing. I'm not sufficiently l'ducated, howevl'r, to know how correct my use of them is. ['m never sure how to correctly employ il single' or a double" ',More fully, As 1 had a skdchy wartime education 1 probably put all the quotation marks, asterisks etc where they should not be, but I me them to illustrate the intensityof the sentences... It is a minefield ... and r get very edgy because of the lack of my formal education (MO/Hl845) The general view seemed to be thalthere indeed was a correct system, even amung thuse uncertain abuut just what it WilS. A (l'W however reflecll'd on the rclative and situalional naturl' of quote marks. A retired film editor and writer commented on the 'curse of illl authurs', the varying publishl'rs' huuse styll'S: 'what is rl'gardl'd as the quintessence of rectitude by one is vil'wed with the l'quivall'nt of an ecclesiastical curse by another!'. Others noted ch.mges during their lifl'lime like thl' incrl'asing use of single quotes su that duu ble now seemed

3. PuHing Others' Words on Stage

49

'archaic·. One habitual user of single marks added that he knew from reading nineteenth- and early tWE'nticth-century books that double marks wer.. then commonly us..d to indicate speech: '1 think that this now looks old-fashioned. In fact, I get the feeling that single quotation m'lrks may be in the early stages of a similar decline'. There were several comments on thl' absence uf quote marks in contemporary novels. This struck sumI' as 'pretentiuus', '.mnoying and spoiling the reacl', a good reason fur giving up on a novel. In a more extensl VI' comment, Sometimes, in modem novels, there will ~ no punctuation 10 show that a character is speaking. I find thiS rather irritating, no doubt because thc conventions I mn comfortable with arc being chaUenged.1 would guess that one of the author's a'·owed intentions would be to di50ricntate the reader, to shake up their eXpc<:blions a little; but after all, it is only punctuation, and I would not always be com'inC<'d that the writer's inteU<-"Ctual cn-dentials wen- sufficient to shake up the other fictional con"entions in qUite the same way (MO!B3227). Others reacted more favoUTabl y. One inslimced the constant <juotations by Pder Wimsey in the Dorothy Sayers novels where even without quote marks 'it is obvious to the reader when a quotation is used', while another reflected on the effectiveness of omitting quotation marks in conveying the bleak unfamiliarity of a post-apocalyptic scene. Or again: l.. recently read On Beauty by Zadie Smith, a book full of reported conversations. A great wriler can wea'·e a narrative around 1'1 series of conversations Without the n-ader haVing a real awareness of the techniques behind the lext, and this has been my experience with Smith's book. Speech in the book nowed naturally between shorter passages of the character's internal Mrratives, and although these wen- written as prose, th<-·y still felt like speKh, albeit unspoken, the novelistic equivalent of the soliloquy I suppose (MO/N3181).

And while James Joyce's lack of <juotalJon marks put onc reader off, another felt that 'great artists - James JoyCl' for example - can dispense with them'. Many noted contrasting conventions for different settings. Most commenlatOI"5 agreed on the use of quote marks as a signal for someone's direct sp<->('ch, whether in formal reports, fiction, or reporting conversations. 'When [ write I do use quot<1lion marks mainly to drum home the fact that wh
50

Why Do Wc Quote?

appropriate for handwritten or word-processed text were not expected in emailed messages (a fell' used them even sO),still less in mobile texting. 'Quotatiuns' should be fully indicated in school ur uniwrsity essays, but not necessarily in letters - though, as one pointed OU!, that depended on the purpose: 'the only time I would really bother is if I were writing to protest, campaign or make .. point. In other words a furmal letter'. A civil servant pointed out the degree of detail in some official written communications Dcpcnding on what it is I'm writing, I may havc to follow thc appropriate convention for a document of a gi\'<'n kind; for example, I might have to begin with a phrase such as 'However, the Prime Minister has said' and then indent the quoted phrase or passage anc italicise the words in question, b"fore beginning a neW paragraph. There are similar conventions for research reports (italicising combined with numbered footnoting, footnotes to appear althe bottom of the relevant page) and when instructing Parliamentary Counsel (rules differ dep<mding On what is being 'luoted: UK or EU statutes and case law, primary or secondary legislation and so on) (MO/M3190).

There were also comments On the purposes for which people used quote marks. Besides Signalling others' speech, onc of the most commonly mentioned was 'emphasising' a word or phrase (this despite some authorities' interdiction of this as 'wrong'). People used quote marks to 'bring attention to something', 'highlite ,1 word in a sentence to take it out of the actual Sl'ntence and mak" it emphasised', 'emphasise a wurd's m"aning', 'emphasis" som"thing, draw attention to the fact that it might be amusing, ironic or preposterous'. Occasionally people said th"y used double quote marks to giv" sp"cial prominence ('\'('n if elsewhere using singl" on"s. Quotation marks w"re also used for expressing an attitude to the words, allowing participants to both use words ;lIld diswci.1te th"mselves from th"m. llll'y could signal thal Ih" sp"aker reg.lfded something as jargon or slang, 'a word that isn't Ihe exact word I want',or '10 indicate that they arc using a word or phrase they would not normally use', or 'to indimte a touch of humour or sarcasm, perhaps to poke fun al political spin or political correctness'. If I am writing about something I actually disapprove of - perhaps some utterance or platitude by Gcorge Bush or Tony Blair (misuse of 'freedom' or 'terrorist', perhap$, Or 'rogue state') J would use quotation marks to indIcate disapproval or to emphasise an irony (MO!D996). Quote marks could indicate suspicion of some direct or implicil claim by bl';ng displayed ironically round words like 'Beloved Leader' or, as 0111' put

3. PuHing Others' Words on Stage

51

it, 'the kind lof phrasel one would follow by "sic" as in speaking of someone ironically as "friend" when they were far from being so', or 10 convey thal '1 think the idea is phoney as in "politically correct". I fed sure that the person to whom I was wriling would understand the implicit sneer, or I would not have used the term'. Similarly quote marks could 'distance the writer from a description with the implication of doubt or sarcasm' - no doubt the fl'ason a civil servant found his superiors sometimes laking exception 10 his reporls: t will put 'juot~tion m~rks around certain words Or phrases which I'm not actually 'juoting when I wish to cOIll'el' that either (a) the word or phrase, which has a familiar meaning in genNal usage, is here being used in a technical sense... or (b) the conc<:pt or argument d<:noted by the words has not be"n ade'juatdy gmsp"ci Or thought through. I haY!' to be careful in the lalter case, however; it can cause a good deal of offence to senior colleagues, as I know to my cost (MOfl\.13190). That the USe and i1bsence of 'juote marks was fm from straightforward was recognised in a number of comments. The i1dministralor who referred to 'someone officially sanctioned to speak about love, heilrtbreak or bereilwment ... ' then i1dded thilt he hild hesitated whether 10 put 'officiillly sanctioned' in quotes: The ..,ason I might have done was to stow that I w~s using a figure of spe<.>eh: [ know very well that poets and authors arc not really offiCially sanctioned to talk about love. but [ wanted to indicate that mixture of superstition and embarrassment when discmsing profound subjects which might I"ad people to act as though they were, In the cnd. I did not Us" 'juotation marks, since I think On the page they Can look fussy and selfconscious in this context. [ also prefN to trust to the intelligence of anyone reading what I write to interp""t my meaning cor..,ctly (MO/B3227). $en'fill proplt' mentioned i1ltematiws to inverted commas. Theynott'd that their own practices vilried i1ccording 1o the input mode, no doubt intcrilcting wilh changing writing Ic<:hnologies. Inverted commas continued strong in handwriting. italics or bold were easier in word procL'Ssing. There were many references to the USe o( italics, different fonls, bold and line-centring. Or
52

Wily Do We Quote?

The writers themselves were not necessarily consistent (one example came in Fig. 2.2 where the author vMiously indicatC'd quotation by single imd double quote marks, a new line, and setting out as poetry). Between them they illustr
3. Putting Others' Words on Stage

53

satisfactorily'. The signalling sometiml'S varied ilccording to who was being quoted, as with the womiUl who changed her voice if it was a family member but utherwise it would just be 'as so and su S'lys'. A fll'eting facial expression or quick head tilt were sometimes used for a subtly-conveyed teasing utterance like 'More hasle less speed'. Such signalling worked, it seemed, evcn if the users were nol wholly aware of their own practice. As one wrote t think when I guote (I never thought of this before) t would uSe a lone of voice that puts quotatIon marks around the quote. So, pause and emphaSIse the saying, Ihen pause again at the cnd before returning to your own speech (MOfH3652J_ Such Signalling could gel the hearer ur reildl'r not unly tu p,lUse 'lnd weigh up the words but to share the user's attitude to them, whether of humour, agreement, disapproval or whatever. Thus vocal and bodily indications cunveyed nut just that sumething was quuted but the speaker's view of it. One commentatorshowed she was speaking ironical1y by making 'the symbols for quotation marks with my hands raised alongside my he.ld' while an administrator looked back revealingly to his l'adier usages I remember as a teenager, myself and cer-ain of my friends, 10 distance oursdffrom Ihe adult world (with, as we saw it Ihen, ils tedious conventions), would use everyday phrnses in invisible q'~otation marks, invisible but made visible by heavily ironic inlonation. So. [might sayon coming in, 'How aboul a nice cup of tea?' indicating by my tone what Ithoughl of people who made such remarks in all seriousness .... As t~e years wenl b}\ the quolation marks dropped away, and now the proportion of sarcasm 10 sincerity has swung completely the other way (MOfBJ227). Again there was speaking or singing in a 'silly voice' for humorous quotes or a 'more pompous .'oice when quoting, l'Spedal1y if it is to my children - this is intended to be funny'. Tone and glosture, parallels to written quote marks, could set a phrase apart, giving it additional weight and meaning. Our boss told us that work was going 10 be 'vcry busy' - when she s
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Wily Do We Quote?

The signalling sometimes extended to complex mimicry; bringing the quote to life, Dialect or accent - an American or a northern accent for example - wl're sumetimes part of the quute's chamcteris'ltiun. So tau with vocal delivery - said in 'a Monty Python tone' for instance, or taking on 'a

!loly tone based on two cousins, both vicilrs, who generate mockery'. Voice and gesture could dramatise, not just repl'JI, somL'Onl' l'lse's words, as in When I was on holiday I wankd to put it bet On the Darby and couldn't find a bookies so 1 went into a TIC in thc Highlands and asked if there was one in thc town we wcre in, The elderly shocked assislanl said 'NOO, SAIRTAINLY NOT". She waS so indignant that I ncarly had hysteriCS and couldn't get out fast enough, You would haw thought I asked for the nearest ~x shop ... this lieU with all th" facial horrordc (MO/elOS), Less dramatically but equally tellingly an HR assistant and her colleagues quoting olhers at work would mimic their mannerisms, 'not to their detriment, but to bring to life thal person's worry as when they told it, Mannerisms arc such a good conveyor of meaning'. If a quole was well enough known an overl sign.l.1 W,15 nol illways necessary. With proverbs, for example, 'I would assume that my listener in these cases knew r was quoting, and wouldn't use a special voice or anything else' and 'I don't lhink I have a parlicular voice for quoles like "Time and tide wait for no man", ''It's an ill wind" etc. ... Everyone recognises that they arc just sayings'. Sometimes a quotation would be alluded tu rather than fully repeated - referred to ,lS having a kind of e"ternal existence, equally recognised by others. Onc signal that roused unexpectedly strong feelings was the twofingered gesture representing quote marks (une~pectedly to me, that is, given its familiarity in academic circles). A few noted it as a convenient tool to indicate sarcasm or irony, but it was mo~tly mentioned in tones of extreme dislike. Time after time people used terms like 'irritating', 'detestable', 'patronising'. 'I try not 10 make "quote mark" signs with my hands (I've heard too m,my people say how armuying they find this)'. One commentator designated 'a special place in hell' for people drawing quotation marks in the air. Ostentiltiously demarcating something as quoted might be all right fur a public presentatiun, but in less formal situations was pretentious. The shifting ambiguities of Signalling quotation thus came out nol only in the duubts and inconsistencil'S evident among the obsl'rvl'rs themselves, but also in their reflective commentariL'S on current practices. Ways of

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signalling certain chunks of language as somehow set apart seemed to involw not after all some dear-cut distinction but shifting and multifaceted modes of staging, varying with situation, lL'Chnology, mode of deliVl'ry and participants.

3.2. When la quale and how In what situation" did people find themselves quoting and in what W.1YS? lhis was strikingly varied, if only because the words and voices of others could ilpparcntly be turned to almost any occasion. Let me sketch solf1Cof the contexts mentioned by the British observers to iIlustr,ltesomething of this diversity. Here to start are settings picked out by three contrasting individuals. First, a specialist wood polisher, looking back to his apprenticeship in the famed British R'lilways Carriage and W,lgon Works in what is now Milton Keynes; 'The Works', as it was known, ... had its own culture, traditions, codes and sayings, Sume uf which remain with me lu this day; probably oc><:i1use of their colourful nature. r Can distinctly remember waiting to clod; uff at the end oflhe day and the discussion being whal was for tea. Someone said that what he was going to have was' a bluddy grel donkey's cock stuffed wi' sage an onion: He was joking.. of course. A similar quote that has stuck in my mind, is one for which I make no apology in describing as a masterpiece of pithy crudity. It was a description of 'In orgasm as being 'like a flock of starlings flying oul of ycr ars<:'. Apropos of thiS type of humour, WaS a wonderful quo'" that I read On the wall of a toilel in the Works and which I have remembered to Ihis day. Amongsl all the other silly, puerilc scribblings and crude drawings had been written 'Where ignorance and procrastination proliferate, vulgarity invariably asserts i1s<:If'. I like 10 think that it was written in a spirit of humour rather than pure indignation. I abo wonder if Ihe writer was quoting or composing (MO/G3126). A middle-aged local council worker gave a different picture Well, on a daily basis I will relnte a conversation t've had with someone - whether il's re·telling, 10 a colleague, an inlerview or a telephone convefS"lion at work or telling my partner what my Mum has said on the 'phone during Our nightly phone calls (MO/H3378). Different yet again was a former social worker and bread-and-breakfast landlady now in her 70s. Quotations were a conscious and v'llued dimensiun of her life and she described at length the occasions she used them

56

Wily Do We Quote? Owr the phone with a friend who loves poetry. In a group when I want to be funny or when somebody's stuck or got it wrong. In a class, writers' group, discussion group to underline, or contmdict ~ point. r continue to oc surprised by people who don't know their ShakespeJre, but then r would fall dismally over the wording of pop songs. My partner is not literature minded, but he does 1ov<~ songs. r might gi"e him a line from a song.. but nut an extract from MorI, dAr/hur. On the other hand ourcat provides an appredatiw.' audience for poetry d«laimed for his benefit, or for a chant from ,"'y of the major world religion,. It;, r"ceived as a personal gift. Of course one must tem~r the Wind tothe shorn lamb. But don't we all quot.. ourselves, again and again? That's what famil}' sayings are about, family myths, little shorthand expressions drawn fromour personal history - used once, then never forgotten - special words for things the children do... Sill}' songs. So many we don't realise their uniqueness and peculiarity until perhaps onc such expression slips out in front of a stranger, whose blank stare reveals the oddness of our private vocabulary. Internal quoting? Perhaps I can't sleep, may~ there's a long train journey ahead, perhaps I'm waitmg in a bus queue - the repertoire of quotations is always to hand for a quiet, inner recitaL All those classics learned painstakingly by heart at school, supported by pocms, speeches learned later in life for specific purposes. I might start with 11 quotation ~ginning with A, and work relentlessly through the alphabet -or perhaps with a poet beginning with A and produce something from his work -there can ~ dead ends, but the process nCver fails to induce relaxatiOn. plus happy memories (MO/Nl592). Onc obvious dimension here was the diversity of situations and

approaches. But such accounts also illustrated a theme that r,ln through many commentaries, either taken for granted or explicit: that quoting was not some uniform neutral practice. It was to be used with discrimination, differently in different contexts. Whilt was right foronesetting or audience would not do for another. Overlong quotations at the wrong time were 'pretentioUS', quotes acceptable in a formal speech sounded 'affected' in conversation, and the young woman who loved quotations in the family circle would newr, unless specifically asked, quote anything 'in a formal conversation'. Quoting should depend on 'the person to whom one is speaking, the topiC discussl'd, the time available and the location': quotations from the Bible and perhaps hymns or newsp,lper articles would be right in preaching, for example, but not elsewhere. A receptionist exchanged literary quolalions with peopll' like her mother whose knowledge meant they could use quotes' as shorthand for many things', but never at work where people already thought she

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was 'posh'. An acupuncturist keen to pass on wise or pithy quotes hild to be discriminilting, 'otherwise they C,ln begin to tah' on the mantle of the drended proverb!', while a young mnn WilS thinking about his recipients' likely knowledge when inserting quotillions into emails like song lyrics from popular bands or quotes from books: some might be reasonably weU known but not the rest, The things I like mOre are known of less, and so there isn't the point. If I was to say a couple of lines and there was no one to know the other lines, or where it was from then there might be no point (MO/E2977). Specific contexts demanded different repertoires: ilt work, in schools, speciillists with their own quotes, musical bilnds, ilnd much else, not INst the settings of family and domestic e"perienee. Quotes were often 'meaningless to anyone outsidl' the inner family circle. I suppose it's a way of creating bonds between close members of the family', said one married tea.::her, while a biologist saw the quotation-inter.::hanges between himself and his wife as 'a way of identifying with each other and having a common link'. As a retired teacher noted, 'The whole point of using quotntions is surely that the listener will understand the reference; it's a way of using Shorthand, of bonding speaker ilnd listener closer together'. Quoting thus depended on both speaker .md listener(s). Pnrticipants had to share not only knowledge but a resonance with the quote's impliciltions - an ability to pick up, as one put it, on the 'irony; pun or analogy' evoked by it. This no doubt lay behind the frequent references to using just pnrt of a quotation for others to acknowledge nnd complete, whether illoud or silentl y. Proverbs were the most obvious example - 'Too many cooks' Ispoilthe broth], 'Hell hath no fury' llike ,1 woman scorned], 'Whnt the eye does not sce' Ithe heart does not grieve over1- but it applied to other forms as well. Sometimes an expli
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Wily Do We Quote?

quotations were for where the written word held notably in educational and examination situations. quotations frum literary works and set texts were routines, togeth"r with quot
a dominant position, In academic contexts pnrt uf the neCl>ssnry citation and explicit

I alwars remember getting a positive comment after quoting and crediting Ralph Waldo Emerson in an essay. The tutor said it's nice to COme across students who read and understand the classics, But Ihadn·t read any Emerson; I'd lifted it from a book of quotations to support my argument (MOjV3091). Conversational cont"xls, by contrast, often had the 'throwaway' quote, only lightly emphasised and often with the source not explicitly cited. Some younger commentaturs wer" deplOying quotations in written electronic communication, especially emails. One used quotations as' a t prepared' and 'Tr(>al olhers as you would Ireat yourself', can 'help you 10 gd through life'. Some said they thought in quotl's. For a nurse on Ihe Isle of Lewis Ihe sight of the mainland evoked 'Oh brave n(>w world that hath such peopl(> in it' and a moral dilemma 'a quote from tilt' N"w Tt'stament or the Dalai Llama'. Similarly When I'm thinking about things, I will often fird that quotes come 10 mind from books I've read, Or from proverbs Or sayings.... (AI phrase I'm fond of quoting is a saying my Auntie uses whenever you're faced with a mountain of problems. She sal's, 'Treal it like you wculd eating an elephant: One bite at a time', tt's helped me deal with problems many times (MOfF3137). A nurse found quoting a hymn verse reassuring and an elderly widow f('Call"d 'lines running my head' and ft'membl'rcd quoting poetry to h"rself to calm her nerves before sailing races, Another writer said that onc of the few things she quoted - to herself rather than others - was

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the Serenity Pray,'r.... God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I'm an atheist but still se<; it as a good doctrine to live by(1\10/M3132). Proverbs were internally quoled for personal exhortation or encouragement, a good example being 'If at first you don't succeed ... '. One young woman used proverbs '10 clarify and decide upon things without getting bogged down by negativity': the saying 'It Is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' was currently helping her cope with a scaring person'll experience. A middle-aged bus stalion controller was more upbeat; I may quote proverbs when I am speaking but I am much more likely la quale them to myself, silently, to spur mysdfinto wme wr! of action or tu help myself make a decision. When I am \vOrking at somdhing which is becoming tedious, I often say to myself, 'I've started, w I'H finish', or if I am trying to taclde a problem, which appears difftcult, for the benefit of my wife, 'Faint heart nc'cr won fair lady (MO/t3674). Silent quoting could have the advantage of avoiding offending or embarraSSing others. A middle aged labourer dt'scribed lines of puetry coming to mind in cerlain situations - 'but to quote them, well thal depends on the company -or else it can seem vcry pretentious!'. Similarly from an ex-headmistress My favuurite Shakespeare one glCJ<'s something like There COmeS a tide in the affairs of men. if taken at the flood leads on to greater things'. I like that because I believe wc make our own luck and must be ready to take the initiative. I don't think I'vc cver quoted it to anyone, in case I was trying to behal'<' in a superior manner (MO/El 74). Quotations were also used as a shorthmd way to set something in perspc<:ti ve by calling in someonec1se's wordsor persona. These could come from almost any source - 'high' literary works, proverbs, family sayings, personal mottoes, topical c
60

Wily Do We Quote? mind whenever I see news foota~e of a politician tryin(l to scramble th,-, nation out of some diffirult sihlJtion by force of personality alone (MO/C31(7). Many commentators were well
was to shape their listeners' interpretation of a situation. Debaters staged quotations from famous pL'{lple 'to add weight, interest or humour' or as 'ammunition' to further their argument, and one writer pertinently concluded his comments by quoting 'Have you ever observed that wc pay much more attention to a wise pass'lge when it is quoted than when wc read it in the original ,lUthor? (from Phi[ip Hamerton's Tire 111/elleclual Life),. Lines from poems ,md rock lyrics were used silllllarly to delineate some position or 'underline' a point, and a disagreement with parents could elidt Philip L'lrkin's famous 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad'. An ex-civil servant used quotes to emphasise/substantiate a point, to justify a point, to lighten the su bject in question with humour, to support an argument, to give an alternative view while not necessarily ag~eing with it, quoting can be used to demolish an alternative view to that not held by the speaker/writer (MO/L 1991). A young factory worker neatly characterised a par,llle[ uSilge in ncndemic settings: Without them [quotes], arguments woold not be backed up, critics coold be strong and it would be easy to argue against it. You must support your work -that is what we were taught at universit}~ It could mak., you sound well read, and give you a stronger case... you would also have to (for thctop marks) add some critics as weH - which you would then somehow dismiss (MOIE297). Like p,Hables but more subtly quotations could comment indirectly. This demanded creative skill in bringing a quotntion 10 bear on il particular Silt1.1tion and selecting the aspe<:1 to emphasise. One observer quoted from films, cartoons, and novels 'to point out iln analogy with the situation I'm in', ilnother to bring 'ilnother level of meilning to il st,ltement', or as il kind of '''3side'' ,1S if you were speaking off the record'. Or agilin 'a luved quutatiun quickly demonstrates that one understilnds how 'lOother person feels'. A dilughter reflected on a poem her father hild quoted to her: It was 5-0 perfed, il SO fitted how I felt at the time that it meant a lot to me becausc it showed th3t both my Dad and the 3uthor of this poem had been through this awful experience themselves. I think quotes can haw power like that (MO/P3213).

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Indirect analogies, ostensibly in someone else's words, could be more effective than direct asso:>rtion - setting the words on the stilge but ill the same time partly st.mding aside. 'I sumetimes cume uut with "A stitch in time saves nine'''', silid onc, as 'a mild reproof to my partner when he ICilves something unfinished', or I often use family sayings when talking to the children at school. Somdimes thiS can be a marC genii" way uf admonishing Ihem and, if Ihe quale IS appropnat", Ih"n It IS often shorthand for what could end up bemg a lengthy discussion (MO/A3884). Others' words and voices were also used to indicate detachment, irony or disagrCl..>ment. [n writing this was usuillly through quotation marks while in spoken forms body language, vocal tone, ur just a phrilse or single word could suggest a distancing from the words even while voicing them. This, it seemed, was a complex combination: in onc sense illigning il speaker with thl' quuted wurds while simultaneously disowning ur questioning them, perhaps at the same time again laying them out for scrutiny, satire or ridicule. Quotations were also used the opposite way - less to distance than to bring an idea or person closer. As illustrilted in the previous chilpter, family quutiltiuns ilbove all seemed to do this, especiillly those from mothers and grandmolhers but also fathers and other (mainly older) family relations. Still in a way staged as a distant voice from someone eiS(', such quotations could bridge the chasm of death and were bruught near as il continuing evocation of affection and memory in the present. And then, intertwined with all this, there was always amusement and delight. One setting here was pl'rsonal reilding, reflectiun, and the repetition of wordings memorised from Ihe past, People used quotes, wryly or allusively or expressively, to deal enjoyably with the immediate events uf (·veryday living. My fondesl film quok is from 'Clmlldi' - 'I musl rake and cover the latrines' used to describe anything I am about todolhat I don't particularly want to. My husband says, wh.m he feels that people are getting at him 'I'll go and cut somdhingoffthen', though wc don'llmow where it comes from. We both, when responding 10 non· serious apologies say, 'That's one-two·three-alright' with a whimper and a sigh. This comes from IX], who really does say 'That'~__ alright' and expect people to feel guilty about h"r (MO/N35!l8). Quotations were uS('d to entertain, whether through qUips omamenting everyday converse, recitals at family gatherings, or formal occasions

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Wily Do We Quote?

for speech-making. Humour and pleasure emerged in accounts of live conversations with family or familiar friends and col1ellgues. A civil SerVllnt slipped her granny's 'strange sayings' intu family conversatiuns 'just for fun', quotes could 'enrich text and conversation', proverbs 'used wittily ... usually raiS(' a response', and song lyriCS in banter delighted friends at work. Quotes were good for humollr or sarcasm - or indeed mischievous provocation, as in '1 like saying "the pOI calling the kettle black", "a blld workman blames his tools" or "if the Cllp fits", all of which can be guaranteed to annoy someone if the occasion is right'. Enjoyable too were mock analogies imd parodies. Clever misquotations in newspapers headlines drew the eye and many people had played around with known quotations. 'As kids we uSl'd to do parodies of 101'.11 proverbs, mostly withuut knowing what the arguments meant', said onc, while the familiar 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' turned into 'if it is broke, panic', and a husband extemporised 'Hell hillh no fury like a woman's corns' of his wife's painful foot. Another wrote how he had first heard 'Assumption is the mother of ,111 fuck-ups' in a journalism course (meaning 'Check it!'); together with other proverb-like phrases like 'Opinions Me like arseholes - everybudy has one', 'About as much use as a chocolate fireguard', 'If at first you don't succeed, give up' or (another take on it) 'If at first you can't succeed, suck oranges!'. Keeping your end up in pl'fsonal interactiun (amI' in too, fur quoting could be used to impress or entertain others. A widower had quoted long poems learnt at school to impress his wife 'but for no other re.1son', a company dirl'c!or used proverbs just 'tu show what a dcvl'r-clogs [ am' and a 59-yeM-old relished puuling people with Lltin tags from his youth: '1 enjoy the incomprehension they produce'. The retired headmistn'ss c.lpped others' quotes 'for fun or tu squish them' whill' for another The most fun to be had from quotations is when like-minded people get together and suddenly one spouts a quotation and then someone gives the opposite one and then the game continues. [t can ~ quite funny and oftI'll you remem~r ones you thought you had forgotten (MO/H170J). All in all, 'sayings and quotes help cunversation along'. And all this was often ingeniously combincd with that other attribute of many (though of course not all) much-usl'd quotations -their brcvity, encapsulating soml' particular vision in culourful and ml'morable shorthand. This added to their delightful artistry - something to be heard

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and relished, and passed on to others. '1loYe quotes as usually they sum up a situation in a few words and sometimes can be very funny'. People were thus skilled in tapping into the occasiuns where quutatiuns could be deployed, to an extent shared with others but also manipulated in ways personal to the individual. The open-ended but multiply ('voc,Hive dimensions of quoting could be turned to many situations. 1',1It of the pleasure lay in bringing out the connections and the analogies, building on the capacity of quotation to capture something sucdnctly and Wittily while at the same time introducing an dement of distance and perspL'Ctive. In the 'here and now' described here, people were making discriminating use of quoting and quotations in a host of varied and personally meaningful situations. In that SL'nse quoting was not so much some possession of the academic learned world ur of reference books as an 'lctively developed - if variably taken up - art in the world of people's everyday actions,

3.3. To quote or not to quote The discrimination needed in quoting itself created disagreement however, ,md the very quoted fonns specially v'llued by some earned strong disapprobation from others. Indeed the concept and pr,lctices of quoting were imbued with doubt and ambivalence, raising issues on which some writers reflected extensively. One problem lay in divergent views about what counted - or should count - as 'quotation'. Was it only 'f.lmous' sources? Where did 'plagi.1rism' begin and end? What about singing, wdl-knuwn phr'lsL'S embedded in everyday language or new·minted sayings? Such questions were taken up by ,1 number of the commenl,ltors - individuals experienced in expressing themselves in writing and accustomed to reflecting on knutty issues. Certain fonns we,.." it seemL,d, unambiguously' quotations'. These were described in such terms as 'stand;ud quotes', 'official quot,ltions', 'famous' ur 'well-known' sayings, 'quutes frum famous peuple ur intelligent onL'S like Shakespeare'. They were 'the words of someone ... officially sanctioned to spe,lk about love, heartbreak or bereavement; a poet, an author, a great historical figure', frum 'English literature generally - stuff [ learned at school', 'the sort that gets anthologised'. But precisely what fell within that category at anyone time was less defined. It depended nmong other things un gt'neration, locality, background, changing educational curriculn and published collections

64

Wily Do We Quote?

as boundaries shifted la incorporate excerpts from more recent sources. The schooled tradition seemed the predominant reference stiUldard, luuking tu 'the puets', Shakespeare (sL>emingly 'the' quotatiuns-authur par excellence), the Bible, and, to a slightly lesser extent, prose w rilers from the traditional literary canon. Sometimes it was also the words of figures like Churchill ur Roosevelt who hild ilttained a status as quotatiun-originator. For a few (mainly older) commentd but not quite classed as 'a quotation'. But such distinctions too were unpredictable, as when a small onc-off remark settled down into a more frequently cited quotation. TIll' boundilriL"S around and within 'quotation' were shiftilble Ilnd diversely drawn. It was pointed out too that new quotations could emerge and become recognised: even with the 'authorised' quotations the ranks were not closed. Several commentators furthermore aspired to establishing their own quotations. A retired nurse had ahvilYS wilnted to make a quote to be rememb('red by and a motorcyclist had adapted Orwellto coin her 'Two wheels good, four wheels bad'. Another gleefully recounted making up her

3. Putting Others' Words on Stage

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'own quot{" in riposte to a lift-cadging acquaintanc{"s remarks on her luck in owning a car: 'The harder I work the luckier I get'. Amidst this variety there was nu cunsensus on just what it was that mad{' something a quotation. It was perhaps partly how far a particular wording seemed to have become crystallised and relatively permanent, not just something ephemeral or onc-off among a few individuals. This was obviously a matter of degree, again with indistinct boundaries. There was also was some vague feelmg that format was perhaps relevant -that ideally a quote was short, condensed and possibly with rhythmiC, allitl'rative or parallel structure and/or metaphorical import, as with many proverbs as well as the 'new' quotes just mentioned. But this WilS not a universal or clearly articulated view, and certainly not easily applicable to the lengthy literilry quotatiuns prioritised by others. Many raised the puzzle of whether soml'thing had to be recognised as such to count as a 'quotation'. They pointed to the problem of phrases now more or less part of common currency; and seveTilI commentators who reckoned they did not consciously go in for quotations qualified this with such remarks as'l suppose I do use them without re,llising their source'. Numerous exampk-s uf Whilt might in one \'lilY be reg'lfded as ' quutatiuns' hild now, as one put it, been 'subsumed into the language and wc hardly recognize thl'm even as wl,'re s'lying them, ('xcept as a faint echo or a kind uf diction which is not our normal spl'Cch'. This was noted not iust for wordings originally from such sources as Shakespeare, the Bible or other IiteTilry forms but also for short s'lyings likl' 'It's an ill wind' or 'Killing two birds with one stone' - illl 'now a normal part of speech' where '1 quote without realising'. And then again there were the slogans, buzzwords, Md sayings within speCific circles, as in 'I have heMd these (family] quotes so uften thilt they hilYe becume a part of everyday lilnguage that I use'. Many, it seemed. might share the hesitiltion of the writer who ilfter commenting 'A little learning is a dilngerous thing ilnd I cannot write with ilny authority on this', immediately went on to add: Should I hal'e put that in quotes in case the reader didn't recognise it as a proverb? I think to do so would have b\>(>n an insult to a reader sufficiently well-read to recognj~ it and iftherdon't maybe they'll think it a clever turn of phra,;,:, of my making! (MO/B2240). There was a spreild of opinions, then, but no agreed set of characteristics marking off 'quotation'. Some were widely accepted and indeed seemed quite remarkably durable (a point to return to in Chapter 5), but for most

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Wily Do We Quote?

putative quotations it ultimately turned on how far they were considered as such by somoone -perhaps many, perhaps few, perhaps just one individual. Interwoven through these iUllbiguities were at the same time surpriSingly strong feelings about quotation. Much of the literature on quoting focuses on the production side or, at any rate, on the act of quoting and (predomimrntly) its perceived bl'nl'fits.! Many of the mass observers threw a different light on it, for they also drew attention to the rcception and sih,alions of quoting. nnd to the rclahonship of spenker nnd hearelis). There wns an interesting rangl' of views, from disapprov.ll of thl' whole ideil of quoting (variously understood) to shnrp comments on right and wrong wnys to do it. Some expressed themselves vehl'mently ilgainst quoting altogether. Quoting was to depend on others' words. It wns 'hacknl'yed', bl'ing unable to fOnTI 'your own opinions', n lack of 'original thought'. Again and ,lgain there were comments like 'Why quote someone when you've got a brain to Sily it your way?', 'People rarely add to thl' wisdom of the person they're quoting, they simply "parrot" n related phrnse', 'If (people] quote too much [ think they don't have anything of their own to say or don't understand what thl'y are trying to convey', and the dismissive 'I seldom use quotes. I prefer to say something original', Quoting was se"n as a lazy way of avoiding doing the thinking yourself, or of trying to cover up a weilk argul1lent. There were mnny comments on the lines of 'I cnn'! stnnd people who hide behind biblical quot"s in defence of their own, sometimes bigoted, views' or those who rely 'on thl' authority of others rather than the s1Tl'ngth of their own arguments', Even people who quite approved of quoting qualified this by comments Iik" The only thing that I don't like about quotes, is that it takes words out of someone else's mouth, rather than your own. W~ use quotes when wc can't find the appropriate word. for ouriiCtve... Sometime. quotes an: used when the speaker/writer believes that the olherperson will resped the quoted person more than themselves. I think that is sad (MO/D3644). Sometimes the critique wns in retrospect. A middle-ag"d civil servnnt wondered whether the schoolteachers o( his childhood who used to 'sling a line of poetry as nn answer to a direct question, were simply substituting the potted wisdom of a <Juot.ltion for the reilsoned expression of their 5 The main ex~ption is the literature on 'plagiarism' and related concepts (see further in Chapter 8).

3. Putting Others' Words on Stage

67

own conclusions', Another surmised more charitably that other people doubtless quoted for the same reasons she did, as 'a slightly lazy way of making a point, using words which someone else has already expressed app rop riiltel y'. Others voiced little obicction to quoting in general, but took great exceptiun tu pL'Ople 'over-doing' it, another recurring complaint. 'I don't reillly have iI problem with other people quoting, unless it's constantl y' said onc, and 'if someone was quoting every time they answered you .. , [ would find myself switching off'; at bLost this would be 'tedious' and 'a bit of 11 bore', Another inst,mced a friend whu was 'a notorious user of quotations' in conversation almost always of a literary naluTe, originating with wrilers or film and theatre din'dors, In his case th" usage is always intellig"nt and the source always admowledged, This dOl.'s nothing to prev<.>ntthe habit being extremely tiresome! (MOjHl541)_

The key issue was less the quantily than the appropriateness. To be approved, Ihe setting had to be apt, so too the manner and the relationship between quoter and audience. Wurst of all was if the speaker was 'showing off' or displaying 'erudition' (an emoti ve and repeatedly used word). Such quoters were 'pretentious' and 'pompous', doing it 'to prove they arc something they aren't', 'trying to appear erudite by using obscure texts'. ThusI' who quoted a lot probably intend to increase their authority by dOing so, to sketch in a vast hinterland of knowledge and learning that they arc able to dip into at wilL As with anything that is designed rathfr too obviously to impress, it has the opposite effect and turns me off (M0Il33227).

Or, flatly, 'people who quote other famuus pL'Ople or even the Bible are boring buggers'. Others were more tolerant but still expressed reservations. A speaker concerned to avoid pretentiousness stfL'SSl'd that it all depended how it was dune: 'if I'm showing off, then I'd get what I deserve', he said, recalling the time he'd been told ne sounded like 'a middle class, male pompous ass!'. AnothL'r reckoned that using quotations in a way that s\lggested you might have actually read the original could be effective, but 'use a Single quotation out of context' and you could cnd up spouting words you don't understand and impressing no one but yourself. And if quoting could sometimes increase your authurity 'it's a fine line between that and ... pomposity'. Similarly

68

Wily Do We Quote? I react favourably to other,; quoting in conwrsation or letter,; if the quote is apt, authorit;ltive and interesting, Sometimes they want to reinforce thdr own opinion with the weight of a rnmous authority, and sometimes they do it to show off, to indicate that they arc widely rNd and knowledgeable. Sometimes I am impressed, and sometimes I feel that they are posturing, and just 'parrotting' &Omenne else's argument (MO/M1395).

A middle-aged translator's self-critique articulated both a common viewpoint and the way perspectives could shift: I'm a bit ambivalent about the whole thing these days. While it can be useful to quote a particularly pithy formulation. which rather neatly sums up an opinion, attitude, dilemma, etc, or which indicates that someone has experienced the same problem before, I am becoming increasingly aware that quotations arC often USl!d to indicate the erudition of the quokr. J suspect thiS is because I was once !.'llilty of it myself, in my younger and more pretentious days. Even then r had a particular loathing for those es~cially well-educated types who 'Juoted in Latin or Greek (an utterly pointless exercise, except in the sense of intellectual display) and owr lime I dedded that it was this utge to display that was at the root cauS€ of most quoting (MO/\V3731). This kind of ;lttitude underlay the hostility some showed to published volumes of quot;ltions. 'Why do people use such books?', asked one, concluding 'Probably to make themselves appear knowledgeable, to boost thei rego or just to show off'; or again it was for 'trying to impress with seo;:ond hand knowledge' or show off to 'like-minded people;lt dinner parties'. As one commentator insisted, she was capable of choosing her own favourite quotations, and I think people have the'ie books for dlher (or b"th) of two rea'ions. a) they want to appear more cultured and well ...,ad than they "re, SO they pop the book on the coffee table, or b) they want to impress at dinner parties by appearing to ha"" read books that they think they should ha\'e. The only bits th~y know arc th~ famous bits (MOfM3669). Thc chnrges of lack of originality and, more especially, of showing off were also related to the t.llpe of quotation. People Wl're particularly ambivalent about 'famous quotations', i.e. those seen, bro
3. Putting Others' Words on Stage

69

could make the recipients feel inferior, 'especially when the quote is in Latin or French (I was usell'Ss at L,ltin)', There was a dear wariness of quotatiuns seen as belunging to the elite, high culture, 'snobs', educational authorities. People who engaged in 'seriou, quotations' were 'pompous', and a young civil servant was explicit in condemning 'people who quote from literature': I think it's don" to almost prove Ihey a"" something they aren't. It's almost like saying 'Usten to me. I can quote from Shakespeare. Aren't I cultured and intellectual.' Well, no, frankly. You're an idiot l (MOIM3669). Not all took this line. A more neutml view was that 'People don't h
70 of

Wily Do We Quote? ~ f~mily

member who WilS constilntly quoting, 'his points ilre rarely

funny to mc, since J neither know the person (probably ,1 historical figure) or the scenilrio - and sometimes don't get the <juote's relevilnce to the L""<Jnversation'. Pushing quotations

ilt

someone who was uninterested or

preoccupied was another fault. Thus a nurse reflected that a 'full-blown quote' appears to demand mOre than the fair shan,:, of the listener's attention, by proxy, so to speak. It appears to demand a response and can be irritating. It may... be used by a person to lend authority tosomclhing that they believe ilnd reguire you to spend ages justifying yourself (if you take it on) Or refuting the other person's imposition of their position over yours. A clear exampli' is that of tn" holy roller who CenSureS you ror something you are engaged in dOIng by quoting the Bible at you, inviting debate when you don't want to nave one, you just want to do whatever it is that is meeting with their disapproval in peace! (MOIN3588). As illustrated in the previous section, the art of quoting .1ppropriately was indeed practised with some care. In addition a number ofcommentators also reflected extensively on what was needed for this. Onc middle-aged civil servant commented at length. He avoided 'filmous quotes' .1S likely to sound portentous but did quote p~ms, plays, songs

and SOon when I'm talking orwriting to close friends, my wife, my brother and certain work colleagues. The difference between this imd other contexts is that we share a common sto:k of 'references' which can be gUickly recogllls<:d when guoted or, as is more usual, alluded to in the course of a conversation, a letter or an e-mail. I don't renlly approve of larding conversation with too many quotations and allusions - they're like seasonings and spices, doying when they're overdone - but if you're going to use them at all it must b" in the "xpedation thnt your listeners will recognise the quotation, or at least know that you're .:;tloting, and will award you the appropriate points for elegance and wit. Among the members of my own cirde I can be reasonably sure, although.. some of them have become completely detached from their original contexts and turned into private jokes. 'Am; th.. darkness was cast down over his eyes', for example, uttered in sepulchral tones, indicate. that th" person b<'ing talked about was blind drunk and subsequently suffered from a mortal hangover; it's taken from a Penguin translation of th.. lIind. in which it recurs whenever a warrior gets killed (MO!M3190). People were also wdl aware thilt quot..s could be used to set at someone or be aimed against the recipient. This was the more so if the quoter was disliked - an estranged ex-husband was one ex.1rnple - or associated with

3. Putting Others' Words on Stage

71

some uncomfortable situation or relationship. A middle-aged ex-librarian exp],lined her dislike of proverbs: We had to learn that sort of thing off by heart at school and I think 1 associate them with repression! My mother had SOme wry irritating maxims. My pet hate was 'There's no such word as can't!' Obvious nonsense but! never dared say so! ... My husband hated it if she said to him: 'I'vc got a bone to pick with you!' (M0/52207). Ewn in relatively neutral situations being on th" receiving end could be unrewarding. 'I'm sure there is more pleasure in using them', mused onc observer. 'than there is in reading them as supplied by another'. Unwanted or resented quotes WeTI' the more piercing because someone else's weight was seemingly super-added to the speaker of the moment. Quoting could 'give authority to personal opinions. Perhaps this is the point of all quoting: we Me involving someone else to back us up' - but for Ihe recipient that could h
Lecturers Press officers Broadcasters Newspaper colu nmists Any embroiderer looking for a text for a sampler And that's about it (MOl RI760). Essentially the same point W,lS expressed by a former newspaper editorial manager: My working life dictated that I should be a listener rather thall a talk~r and I don't rccal1 anyone quoting at me - apart, that is, [froml a Methodist lay-preacher who used to address Sunday afternoon classes when I was a tecnag~r. He was acceptable, and I could even tolerat~ th~ doorst~p righteousness of th~ Jehovah's Witnesses, but anyone dse attempting to

72

Wily Do We Quote? quote d\~pter and I'e~ In ordin~ry conwrsa!ion would fIrstl}' OOf(' ~nd then irritate me. I would probably regard them as attempting to be better than they actu~lIy were. That or a suitable case for t",atmenl (MO/Il1654).

The most extr...me disapprov.11 was of 'plagiarism'. This was taken as the extreme example of the wrong way to treilt others' words. It W,lS iI kind of fraud, even theft. condemned ,1S 'despicilbk', 'disgraceful', 'horrifying', 'a huge problem', a form of 'stealing', 'cheMing', 'the moral equivalent of theft', 'i1buse of other people's works and words'. less dilmningly but still in disparaging tones it was 'laziness', 'an eilsy way out', and missing out on the true rewards of learning. TIle milin ire was directed towards students, often linked to their pen:eived opportunities for downloading material from the web .1nd the deteriorating educational standards constantly laml'nted as typical of the present. But these were not the only settings where plagiarism was castigilted. A molecular biologist found it endemic in his workplace - 'not only tacitly encouraged but most of the managers will out and out steal other's work for their own gain' - and a retired local government officer recounted being a victim of plagiarism when his superiors used his work without attribution. A more colourful conclusion was 'Like any other type of thief. I think plagiarists should be strung up by the balls and left for the crows to feed on'. These strong expressions coincided with the punitive tone of much current conventional wisdom, The wrong way to use quotations was to flout the prescribed rules (assumed to be there, though just what they were W.lS not alwilys explicit): breilking these was a dire offence. One commentator neatly invoked a well-known quotation himsel f to conclude 'Shakespeare wrote that a rose by ;my other name is still a rose and when it comes to plilgiarism a cheat by Imy other name is still a cheat'. A few SilW it as more ambiguous however. ll1ey queried whether repealing someone else's words without explicit attribution was necessarily something new, or, even if it was, as ever likely to die out: 'students who arc using the Internet, will go on finding what they need for their work .... "the cat is out of the bag" now'. A few thought teachers and assessment systems as much to blame as students, and a couple iUdgcd the whole issue irrelevant since 'Free speech should be just that. If you voice your opinion, expect to share it' and 'Once a word is ullered, it bc<:omes public property'. Another view was that aHitudes to quoting might in any case be changing. A university administrator commented that having previously b...en scornful of students accused of plagiarism

3. Putting Others' Words on Stage

73

now I (very slightly) wonder. So called rEceived values do change over time. Researehing thingson the internet myself, I ofren find the same passage repeated on different sites with no indieatiO'l5 where it first originated or that any of the authors are quoting the work of another. I'erhaps students take from this the lesson that text is no-onc's property (MO/B3227). For some it WilS partJ y down to students' inexperience in not yet having acquired the skills (or subterfugl'S) of more worldly or powerful actors, the more so thnt, liS one e"pre5S<.od it, 'No-one cnn be completely originll!, however creiltive they arc; everyone drilws upon the past and reworks it to a nl'W cnd'. A retired decorator's light-hearted but incisive view was that 'no self-respecting writer would be caught oul in such il dastardly act due to not disguising it properly', complemented by equillly realistic comments like Student plagiarism, wdl it's not an rthing new, is it. l.yTicist, 'md Aut hors etc. all do it, but th" student, b."ing so young and inexperienced, does not have the skill to conceal the said crime, under a cloak of well-disglli~d word use. We all learn from books and medIa, and generally interpret the imparted knowledge into a stylc of our own, hardly original thoughts, just re-machined (MO(f3155) and Who Can know if what they arc saying is their own thought orone that is an unknown memory, Did I just think I say that from my own head or was it something I heard but don't remember hearing. reople say there is nothing created that is new (MOlDl56). As a former university teacher pointed out, you build on what others have produced before you, 'in some way or other you're always quoting whilt other people have said. Other people's ideas, in the bro.ldesl sense, MC part of your own thought proccss'. So if in some ways quoting WilS taken for granted, in others its delineation was markedly ambiguous. The puzzles and ambiv.llencl'S were in the cnd scarcely surprising, raising age-old issucs over just what 'quoting' is, where it comes from, and how or whether to attribute and control it (issucs to return to in later chapters). The comments here conwy<'d Ihe eventually relative natu re of 'quoting' and its perception - a mal1erof degree, practised at different levels and in differing but overlapping senses, with merging layers of understanding and practic(' intertwined with the specificities of situation, participants and modes of usage.

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Wily Do We Quote?

3.4. So why quote? What came through persistently in these comments was the complexity of ways people were using and concei ving of quotation. They diff('red among themselves in the content, extent and natUrl' uf whilt they quuted, in huw they presented it. in their attitudes to and interpretiltions of quoting ilnd of how, when or by whom it was done - and not always in approving tenns. Some of this was prubably related tu .~ge, educational bacl moment, whether of higher authority, s\lpport for a position, inspiration, consolation, irony, S<1fcasm, amusement, emph,lsIS, parody, affection for another, detachment, admonition, ridicule, the world in a grain ofsand. They were used to draw together an in-group and by the- same token to exclude others. They could be a mechanism for summarising in small but redolent

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compass, for clarifying, illustrating, justifying, adding weight and interest, dr.1Wing analogies, misleading, mocking, punning.. bringing colour and joy to conversation, convl'ying empathy and understanding - and so on, no doubt, through the infinitude of human action and interaction. They could be experienced as hostile, pretentious, fraudulent - but equally as insight or delight, 'the drops of lubric.mt that oil our liws' or the reassurance of 'finding an echo, more beautifully or roundly expressed than we could {'v{'r manage oursdves, in the words of someone else'. It was also striking how often the choice and use of quotations was envisaged as having an intimat{'ly p{'rsonal quality. Particular quotes - proverbs, verses, biblical texts - were seen as guidance or symbol throughout life. Time after time quoting and individual personality were tied in together: 'The quotations a person uses in speech and writing are like a patchwork of their experience and life', 'If anyone quoted to me I'd think they were revealing themselves to me', 'I enjoy people using s.lyings and quotations, it is interesting and tells me a lot about the person in a few words', Similarly quotations 'reveal the beliefs and prejudices of the person using them', and 'If yOll built up all of the things that a person was quoting from then you'd surely get a good idea of wh.lt they liked - the music, the tv, their tastes and styles would become clear, and so might thl'ir age'. A retired company executive wrote down his three most-used quotations with the comment' and perhaps these tell you something about my character'. Butthl'Il alongside that personal enactment in the present went the idea of 'JllOtation as a text or VOiceulVuyfrom ephemer'll personal intel\.'Sts and passing concerns: other voices and words beyond oneself. Certainly quotations were to be used, and skilfully used, within the prt'Sent moment and present company. But the source from which they were drawn -('Yen th.. most recent c1iche.s and sayings -lay in some other, earlier time, outside and translX'nding the prt'Cise here and now. They wert' a ligature with the past whether a symbolic tie into its 'wisdom' or a personal and emotive tie, iUld at th.. same time an implicit claim to the tight to take hold of that past Quotingsomcone could be at once 'a sign of rt'Spt-'Cl: for theeminencc of thd r views and [guess of my own self ego... I know that's a contradiction in terms'. The \'Oice and the words of others were yours but not yours, for quoting was to put another's voice on stage while at the same time retaining your own. The practices and arrangements of quoting in the here and now were, therefore, heterogeneous indeed. The system, in onc sense clear, was

76

Wily Do We Quote?

neither fully iHticulated nor consistent, and people's reactions to quoting and its various uses were ambivalent. And yet, quotation did in some sense exist. There wrrr indeed activated arts and cunventiuns around others' words and voices, people made informed and creati vc use of them, and were to a greater or lesser degree aware that they and others were doing so. The account so far has been of just onc period and area, a body of practices and assessments engaged 111 by certain people living in Englilnd in the late twentil·th and early twenty-first cenhnil'S. But these ex.lmples ilnd reflections surely do not come from nowhere or exist in isolation. Further questions follow. Arc the practices of today just something of here and now? Do they represent a change - even a deterioration - from the past, the result perhaps of the wonders or horrurs of modern technology? Or again, more spcdfiCillly, how did our system of quotation marks nrise? Where did the collections mentioned here originnte and are they a feature only of the present? How did quuting start and b",come established - is it only in the context of mO(!crnity or of written culture? How do - or didlitemry allusion, intertextuality, authorship, multivoc.llily work? And is the ambivalence over quotation, not least the passions surrounding 'plagiarism', peculillf to the present? The specific case treMed here riliscs questions to be pursul'd further in the historical and compilrative perspccti\'e of the following chapters.

H. BEYOND THE HERE AND NOW

4. Quotation Marks: Present, Past, and Future

quok (verb) 1387, 'to mark (a book) wilh chapter num\x:rs or marginal rel'.:,r<-'TIces: from Old I'nmch (oler, from Middle Latin quolarc 'diStinguish by numbers, number chapters'

(On line etymology dictionary)' We were well taught at school about the U~ of quotation marks (71 year-old acupuncturist from O"fordf

Our writing ilnd reading arc nowadays pervaded by the symbols we

know as 'inverted

(Omm,15',

'speech marks', or 'quotation m
often just the shorter 'quote marks' or 'quot;>s', a term that has been

around for a century or more. These tell u, thill the words they enclose are 10 be ilttribuled to someone else, thill they belong 10 the realm of quoting. And though, like some of the contemporary British observers of Chaplers 2 and 3, we may sometimes be uncertain exactly how these marks work, wc also generillly presume that there Me estilblished rules for using them, authorised by the powerful schooled tradition. Quotation marks play a significant part in the influential contrast between repeating someone's exact words and rephrasing them more indirectly. As unambiguously formulated in a standard manual, to 'put quotes around anything other than a word-for-word repetition ... is wrong' (Trask 1997: 96, bold in the original). This radical distinction between verbatim repetition and indirect reformulation lies, it seems, at the root of the system into which we were drilled as children and students. With this background it is easy to take quote marks for granted without being particularly aware of them, as with m,my of the British commentators reported in the last chapter. Once learned, 1 http://etymonline.com/index.php?1-q&p-2(August2008). 2 MO/H2447.

80

Why Do Wc Quote?

th('y s('emingly aCCluire a kind of univNsal validity attesting to th(' distinctiveness of 'quotation'. The interlinked distinction between direct and indirect speech .lnd its relatiun tu thl' presence ur abSl'nce of quote marks similarly seem built into the foundations of language and of logic. But the conventions we follow (or think we follow) tuday haw not after all been immutable. It is by no means self-evident just what quote mMks are. They have undergone many changes over the centuries not just in shape, ordering or layout but also in how they are used - or not used - and what they mean. Behind the practices and ideas of today lies a long nnd complex history.

4.1. What are quote marks and where did they come from? So how has it come about thnt these little marks now apparently hold such sway. and where did they cume frum? Wh<JI can account for the officially· authorised dominancr: of quot'ltion marks but nt the same time the vnriety of formats and usages? And how could the Oxford Elrg/ish Dictionary recurd the first meaning of our now cummon English word 'quotation' as a marginal reference, nnd the verb 'quotc' as having: stnrtcd as somcthing to do with numbering? No une knuws how Guoting arose in the first place, though sumI' have seen it as one of the great achievements of human history (something to n·turn to in Chapter 6). What we d" know something of however is how written quote marks developed in the Western traditiun - a more limBed topic, but well worth exploring. They h,we a long and somewhat surprising history, one which throws some light on the nature and vicissitudes of quuting and its signals. 50 to complement the previous chapter's focus on one particular time and place, let me this time follow these markings bnck in time. I will start with two slices back through history: first, exemplifying some varying modes for indicating others' words in one short text over the years; and second noting some of the developments in the use of quote marks thM went alongside this. 50 first, a selection of the ways one well-known biblical passage has been printed over the centuries, to illustrate more directly than a

4. Quotation Marks

81

generalised historical account some of the varying manifestations of quote marks (and their absence). This short extract describes the immediate prelude tu Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as this is pTL'Sented in the New Testament at the start of Chapter 21 in Matthew's gospel. It is a revealingly complex passage, quotation nesting within quotation. Here first (Fig. 4.1) is how it appears in one modern versiun - the New Euglish Biblc, fi rst publ ished in 1961 but still in widespread cu rrent use. TRIY WI)tI NOW oearina J(rUpJem i and_when they reed\.ed Belhphlae 21 .t lhe· Mount of Olivea. Jesus sent nro disdples with these illltl'UCliom·: 1 'Go 10 Ibe villqe opposile. where you will 11 ClDCe find • dontey ltth,cted. wilh her flJt;1 beside her; Wltle them.and brina them 10 me. ) f anyone spub ) 10 YOU. SlY. "Our MIHer Deeds them" i and be ""illkt you we them It once.'" This was 10 fulfil the prophecy which laYS. 'TeU the daughter.of
Fig. 4.1

N~",

fug/isl. Bib/', Oxford, 1%1, MaHhew, Chapter 21, verses 1-6.

Jesus' words involve first his own direct words to his disciples, then further words within that, laying down what they should say to anyone challenging them ('Our master needs them'). Single quote marks here enclose his main command, double the words inside it. After that follows ,1 f,lmous earlier prophecy; though the author's name is not mentioned, the words are from a well-known passage in the book of Zachariah (or Zechariah) in the Old Testament. 'Telllhe daughter of Zion .. .' perhaps represents a rather different kind of quotation but is again enclosed within single quotes with the inner words further demarcated by double marks. All this represents a fnmiliar contemporary way of dealing with quotation. A slxond version has it differently (Fig. 4.2). This is older and in a different translation but also folluws a well·l'Stablished format (Revised Standard Version, published in New York in 1946). Again familiar conventions are on show, but this time with the doublel Single ordering reversed. The words frum the Old Testament are treated differently too: "Tell the daughter of Zion ..." is indeed within (double) inverted eommas but addilionnlly mnrked by being set in (rom the margin, while the inner words ('Behold, yuur king is cuming to yuu .. .') have no quale mnrks ilround them.

82

Why Do Wc Quote?

.

And when they drew nea.r to Jerusalem and came to Beth~pha1e. to the Mount of OlivCl. then Jesul IIeflt two disciple., ' aying to them, "Co into the village

21

ClppOIite you, and immedif.tely you will find an aA tied. and a colt with her: untie them and bring them to me. I If any one $&Y' anything to YOU. you IbaU laY, 'The Lord ha, noed of them; and he will aend tlwo.m immediately.~· 'Thi, took place to fulfill what wu spoken by the prophet, l&yinB• • "Tell the d..ughtcr of lion.

Behold. your king is coming to yw, humble, and mounted on an us, Fig. 4.2 Rwisrd Sla"d,.rd Vrrs;on, New York,I946, Chap'er 21, v","ses 1-6.

M~lthew

A Spanish edition (the 1995 Reina-Valera version reproduced on the web) has yet another combination (Fig. 4.3). Here it is the angled marks« " commonly used in continental Europe thal surround Jes~ls' command, with " "enclosing the words within it.«» come again around the Old Testament quote, further dem'lrcated by its spaliallayout but no inner quote m.lrking.

1Cu","do.se ...celC(lron ... Jenu...len IJ lIe6"ron ... Betl.."ge,

"I Monte de 10sOlivos,Jesus envlo dosdhcipltlos. 2 didendoles: «Id ... 111 "Ide" que est'; enfrente de vO&)tros., 1J en 5e8uiM h"ll"rels un" "su" "taM lj un pollino COn ellll. Desa.t"dl.... lj tr..."dmelos. :) Y si Je,nien osdice ... 1Ao,contes~~dle: "El. Senor los necesil pero lue80 losdevolver... ». 4 Todo eslo",collteciO pot... que.se cumplier" loquedijo el prole I,,: .5 «Dectd" I" hij" deSion: tu Relj viene" H. m"nso IJ .sent"do sob... Itn "SilO, sobte Itn polhno, hijo de ...nim.a.1 de C(ltg",». 6 Entonc... loo dbcipuIe. lueron e I.icieron a:1II0 JetI\U les lIIbDd6.

Fig. 4.3 Rein .... V.. ler~ Bible (Spanish), web version, M'ltlhew Chapler 21 verses 1-6, (http://www.biblegatcway.com/passagel?book_id-47&cha pter-21 &wrsion-61 (23 June 200s})

Or lake another example: the Widely-distributed Holy Biblc, Rroil'i'd Ver~i"ll published in the late nineteenth century by the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses (Fig. 4.4). Here Jre no quote marks at illl. Neither Jesus' reported words with their inner instructions, nor the

4. Quotahon Marks

83

qUOllltion (llnd inner quotlllion) from the Old Tcslllment llU' endosed by any quote signs llt .. ll, II fonnllt typical of mnny l'nrlier versions of the Bible.

AND when they drew nigh unto 21 Jerllsalem, and were come to Belhphage, unto the mount of Olh'es,

rhen sent Jesus two dlsclrles, 2 Saying unlo them, Go Into the village o\'er against you, a/ld stralilhtway ye shall find an ass tied, anel a colt With Iler: loose litem, !lnel brlna lhem UlltO

mo.

J And if any man 53}" ought unto you, ye shall sa}', The lord hath need of them: and stralghrway he wlll send them. 4 All this was done, that I1 might be fultllled .....hich was spoken bY the prophet, sayln~, 5 Tell ye rile daughter of Slcn, BellOld, thy King comNh uuto thee, meek, and sitting UpOn 8n 8SS, and a colt the foal of an ass. 6 And the disciples went. ami did as Jesus commanded Ihem, Fig. 4.4 Holy Biblr. King J
n~nlury,

on

Kraj ~Y'll(T(lIo' (lr 'hpOITliXupll KOI ,jXOolJ fls 1$,/0A ' (r I 'TO" 0 IJIH' 'Twtl - 't.'" ~ , 'I IJrrou~ - 111;£fTTfl1IOJ " ,. ,,)oy'I .:..\III6lI', 'TIlT~ 5vo 'W()'JT'nr 'AiywlJ lIuT"oi~' l!0flfV(IrOf ti\· 'Tr;l' KiJf'l'/" 'T,i" , • , (VI1U$' '11' " .. t\ t \ ' , IWT"flltll1Tl VflW1', IWt fllfl'/frfT"f (IU01l U(llfj-U"'1" /Wl 1l'wi'.CJY lur' n,j'Tijr'

'AuU(lI'f'f$' ,..nYflYfT{'

pOl.

K(l} HIli rotS'

JP.11I (t7r!J 7'1 1 lpflu UTI '0 KI;{llO$' nu,..wv XI/dUll {XH' (uOur ltf tllI'fHTTIf).lfi nur-our. TOVTD lU yiytllllfl' tua -rrXqpw6fj 'TO ~'IOEI' adt "TOU tr'(1orp,jrr,v )'iYOI.ITOr

EI'rT,nE: T~ 8'lTt\Tpl !IWN 'l1.oY cl BlI.CIAE:Yc coy epX£T4.( COl

enl ONON ylON YnOZ'I'r(OY.

rrpAYC Kt\l €TTIBe:8HKWC

KAt errt TTwAON

Fig. 4.5 New Test
84

Why Do Wc Quote?

Another common pattern in earlier printed versions is for the spoken dinlogue to bl.' unmnrked but the Old Testament quotntion clearly signnlled. In Luther's f.lmous translation of 1534, quotation mnrks are used only for the Old Testament passage (with no inner marks), while many older Bibles Inck quote mnrks nltogether but distinguish the Old Testnment prophecy by indenting it from the margin. This strategy is common in editions of the New Testament in the original Greek (as in Fig. 4.5), with the words of Zachnriah nnd other quotnhons from enrtier prophets further hIghlighted by being set out in capital letters. Different yet ngain wns the reproduction in William Tyndale's sixteenthcentury New Testnmcnt, the first to be trnnslnted direct from the original Greek into vernacular English, as well as the first New Testament printed in English. This had neither quotntion marks nor indenting, but did have colons before both Jesus' words nnd the Old Tcstnment quotntion (nnd inner quotation) (Fig. 4.6). W~tn

lbtl' brttut nrpt bnto Jrrusalem. nnb Illtrt (omr to :mtlp~age. nnto mountt oUnrtr. t~tn nnl ]Jt'-uS lbn olf bis biuiplrs, uil'nar to tbrm: 1&0 in la t~t tounr tb~t l.!'rt~ obrr ~gap"'tt pan. anb anon pr ,~~lt (.!'nbt an ant bounbr, anb btr (ollr Illitb ~tr, tur l~rm anb bringr t~rm unto mt. Snb if tnp m~n sapt oUlbt unto pou, ,apr pt l~al pour malttr bat~ nrabt off l~rm, anb I1rtpgbl wapt ~r willlct Ibtm go, ~111bis wu 1Ionnt, la full!'lt Ibat wbilb (DU spoktn bp tbt propbrl, upingr: ltrll pt t~r bougbltr of .ion: br~ollrr Ibp kpngr lomttb unto Ibrr mrkr. litlingr uppon an anr an~ a lollt, tbt foolt of[ an un bltb 10 lbr pookt. lrbt billiplrllDtnt, anb beb n ]JtlUI lomannbrb tbrm

Fig. ".6 The Newr Testamwt, translated ioto English by William Tyodale. Worms, 1526, Matthew, Chaplet 21, verses 1-6.

As wc go bilck through the printed versions wc find quote marks less and less used, often apparently not thought necessnry at all. The oldest printed Bible of all, the Latin fifteenth-century Gulellbcrs Bible had neither quote marks nor indenting. Other devices were sometimes employed to mnrk notnble passages. Onc strategy in the Matthew example was to signal the status of Old Testament IVords by giving a reference to the original or parallel passages in the margin. This was the approach in the famous sixteenth century 'Geneva Bible' taken by the pilgrims to America, the favoured Bible of the Plymouth and Virginia settlers (Fig. 4.7). It was a method repeated in many later bibles - a kind of footnote nppearing at the side that followed a long earlier tradition of marginal annotation.

4. QuotnHon Marks

CH"'''.

7

XXI.

85

T"''''

C'"'J ........ J.u!J.•••••r.. .. .,-.1 {h,.,.Jw{fJ Ml.{"",r_,.. 1/ T" dJb ,..a- CIwtR. Twll"_

I' ,.......,..

.......,., F~ ,...}<-rr~··' ri{__ ~ Tw.,-..[_,. 11 TW~ '/'• ....,..... _. <#n._J_'~-'.fJT.. 1.-, ,.i.8J l!r ..... g.-il..

,_i_

• ANd'whetl tht)' drew nCTe 10 IC'rUGkm,and were come co Bethphagt, VnlO~~ mountof the: OtilolCII Ibm Imt

••"w. _. .<1<1:10•••••1 .. 110 'w ...,-1

~yingtO~, Go intoChttOWlle thU is otItt aw,ainfl you.and anoDt y~ thallin-

dtan'a cbound~>andacoltcwilbbcr: lole lhem,a.od bring them YntO me. ~"'f'-J And ifanitmznfayoghc"ntoyou,uy

~~ 10

Itf"scwo dilCiplel•

.·i

;:;:.;:,~ Y~lchal lhe Lord IlachtJICdt oft~m. and of f - " flraight way he will~cc~m.go.

t.

4 All chilwas donethalll might k (ullil~ led wu fpolccnbY de ProphC'c,r:cyinR, ........,. S ""Tc:lyt the: • daughterofSi6,Bc-boldt, ·.T -~._' • ....I
If• .s,.", (,.';",,,.

«

*

f1~,.

Fig. 4.7 n,e Bible and Holy Scriptures COllteined in the Olde "lid Newe Teshunmt. Geneva. 1560, Matthew, Chapler 21. verses 1-7. The prophetic words in verse 5 are signalled not by quole marks but by a marginal reference to the earlier Old Testament passages where they were first spoken (in Isaiah 62,11, Zachariah 9,9), and to a pamllel passage in john's gospd 12,15 in the New Testament

Other ways for visibly distinguishing Old Testament dtillions, while k'aving personal speech urunarked, were by il different font, script, size, colour or capital letters. The device of using layout rather than graphic marks goes bilck a long way, In onc of the oldest New Testament manuscripts, the fifth·century Codex BczaT, the Old Testament quotation is set ilpart by being indented - a system that has, on and off, been repeated through the centurit·s. But in many cases there were no distinguishing marks at all, merely, as with many of tht· texts of carlier classical authors, a verb Signifying speech or writing: hence the (to modern eilrs) redundant~sounding formulations like 'he spoke, saying...,' or 'in the words of the prophet, saying .. .'. Given these diverse ways of representing even onc short passage from one book it is scarc{']y surprising to see variations in the layout and fonnat

86

Wily Do We Quote?

of quote marks still around today. But the striking thing is that in earlier years neither the inverted commas of contemporary English-language texts nor tht>ir mort> angular contint>ntal equivalents apparently played their now-familiar role in marking C1uotation. Whether in the manuscript tradition of Christian and pre-Christian authors or in early printed books, quotation marks in the form we know them now were absl'nt. So a second route to follow is to ask where the quote marks that are so highly visible today came from. What is the origin of our familiar inverted commas? The answer would seem to lie in a little grilphic sign used by ancient Greek editors to draw attention to something noteworthy in the text.

,

Shaped like an arrowhead, it was known as the dipEr ('double') from the two lines that fonned its wedge shilpt'. Its prime purpose was not, as now, to enclose quotations but to act as a marginal Signal for drilwing ill1ention to some particulilr aspect of the text. In the Western written tradition, this basic shape seems to haw been the root of the variegated plenitude of modem forms.} Its vicissitudes make up an intriguing story. In early Greek manuscripts the diplr was a kind of all-purpose marginal mark to indicate something noteworthy in the text, linguistic, historical or controversi.ll. It drew ilttention to such feiltures as a dubious or variant reading that might need amending or elucidating.. the start or end of a section, a new episode, the interpretation of particular word or phrasl', or a passage to be commented on. This arrowhead mark appeared in varying shapes and settings. Though a more complex system with seven different marginal signs was proposed by a GI\.~k grammarian in the ~"Cond Clc'fltury BC thl' dipEr fl'mainl>d the mostly commonly-used device. In itself it had no meaning cxrept for drilwing ilttenlion to something in the text ilnd scribes employed this flexible little sign in many ways. In earlyGI\.'t.'k papyri an arrowhead in the margin could indicate passagl'S for comment, sometimes drilwn from classical authors like Homer or I'lilto; in that context it was akin to marking quotation but within a more general role. Early milnuscripts ofthe Bible also uSL>d marginal diples in the fourth ilnd fifth centuries of the Christim era. So did lilter commentaries on Christian texts. In a sixth century manuscript of Hilary of Poitiers' Latin rommentary Dr Trinitatc, 3 The interdisciplinary range in this volume has meant that here and elsewhere I have inevitably strayed into unfamiliar fields_ Rather than cluttering the text with constant references I hal'e largely employed footnotes to indicate the main sources (mostly secondary) on which I have relied for particular sections. So let me say here that for th" carly history of the diplc J hal'c found th" follOWing particularly useful: Lowe 1934-71, 1972 (many examples and discussion), McGurk 1961, McNamee 1992, Parkcs 1992, Wingo 1972, see also the follOWing footnotes.

4. Quotation Marks

87

for example the passages 'In the beginning was the word' and 'In the beginning God mnde henwn and enrth' (from the New Md Old Testaments resp<'Ctiwly) were each intruduced by 'he said' or 'what ha; oc't'n written' aceumpani('d by an inward-pointing arrowhead in the left: hand margin of the relevant line. The commentary then followed on immedintcly aft:erwards (Parkes 1992: 1689. Plnte 5). An dghth-Cl"Tltury manuscript of Bede's commentary on the bibJicnl book of Proverbs illustrates n similar technique but more decoratively nnd clabornte1y (Fig. 4.8). Here the milrginnl mnrks hnve mutnted mto something moTl' like elongated commas than nrrowheads, this time K>peated down the left: margin beside each line of the excerpt, large at its start, small in continuing line(s). The whole text to be discussed is hHther highlightL-d by a different script introduced by n prominent opening letter followed by the commentary in ordinary script (P,ukes 1992: 180-81).

1}.R\.~ !WJT.l.lK"~ I p\lt'llc! !'o("S'l"U I'iiJIlIlUlrl,t. I Fr • Il.lflttl~llj-pullc .1Plh,1t11 'f",n.""f~tp.!ttllW ....~· .1, rm,:fl.l ...."'ft "jt h!f';' fl;'ljl , , 1
+

..I1l,Il;;v qll'J.iltk~~~1nr·

./ CCS;ti.\

11... "

'S:i;k1l.l'~~-,aous.'1"J,Jl..lull~.

, tluelU.enlSllJ~JetJt::J~~T~I..IAOO~pcm.t~· ..

.

,

''''_\l"JlOllJ;I_CIUS~'C1Aue..~ ~It.C"

.

a•

\4",a tlljl't'I'im4'I;llli''SIUUo:tftWrltll~ .Jll'if'·

h;" ,",::.oft.\li'fbi\"~/a;IFr#ti h":(.Ifa1tl t."
!l.t Itqli" ii.(kmll!fl"',"'" ,'fh>!",;.\!IJ.lllf"(trlllfffllJlJIU lrf ,~,.'iJIIfHillflllpciltllftJ 1l
~ ~f1lr tl-rqru kii1d'.a.,"""1 f114U~f.j· mftl"IJ,w,I" (Inrf( 1~lflIo "...111....,1,.. l.I$UIi' .Itl&-u,tt tfla:o,.",l ql. ~.pdi",f.lftf,jtl·~\Uj'l
Fig. 4.8 Diple marks in an 8th·century manuscripl: Bode', Comme"tary on

Proverbs.

The Biblical passages for comment are indicate': both by diples in the left margin and by a dIfferent ,<TIp!. (MS ]Jodley 819 fol 16, reproduced by pemli,sion of The Bodleian Libraries, Uni""r,ily of Oxford)

88

Why Do We Quote?

':\·-:f1.\.. taut::"'::.:!"" r.:.1~.t:~

4ll~.l~I~br:p·u:t"l'\1r~r~

. "r \llC'tC4.ntp/.' n~"r~u\i '

., Cbl"'rOl"'l' 9"""1''r'"'''''li.<~ .,.....". ber->Cv,,?lu "'"='1'"""' .,."1"" 1nl''*' mpi-""r"'f 4* ~tl1r d.(,."ln:ur-'-lu\"tl1~,

"'r"'''''Nr 'r"'r5"J'~'V . ~ "'i"o "1<'ui'''<;e!"::1:1

-i-

+

=

.

=

'::=

..,

.- ,... , .>

"

" 4.9 Scribal citation marks, 7th to 9th cenluTies AD. The citation marks illustrated here are (starting from the top) 1) Two dots beside a comma (Gregory Moralia in lob, reproduced by ~rmission of Durham Cathedral: Durham Cathedral library C.IV.1l fly leaf; 2) A dot and long straight slash·like COmma ('Canterbury Gospels'; reproduced b~permiSSiD:'lof The BOOl"ian Libraries, Unin~rsity of Oxford: Ms Bib! b 2 (P) £14); J Pairs of small elongated Y-likc signs with a dot inside each (Grcgory MoraHa, © c British Library Board: Add 11878 f 45v). The bottom three rows give stylised print reproductions of other marginal marks u~d by scnbes, sometimes written m red, and with the smgle or double commas drawn in a variety of f~hand forms (based on examples and discussion in Lowe 1934-7] (esp Vols 2, 3), McGurk 1%8, and I'arkes ]992)

The diplesign went on changing and varying, going th rough an ext ra vaganZ
4. Quotation Marks

89

in Fig. 4.9). They came as dots (single, double, multiple), as squiggles, curves, horizontal lines, double or singlt:' s-like flourishes, r-shapes, V's or V's with ur without duts inside (a diple turned on its hend), n cross, duuble ur single commil-like curves, a single or double horizontal stroke sometimes with dots above and below. sometimes in red - and yet other pennutations. A fCversed diple with dot was used in sixlh-Ct'ntury gospels in Syriac, pilirs uf sinuous strokes in the left margin marked quotations from scripture in an eighthcentury cxample, and a sixth-eentury insular manuscript showed citations by 'a tiny flourish (7-shaped or lib' a bird in flight) to the left of each line' (Lowe 1972: 4). There was also the idiosyncr_ltic version known as the 'English form': a scrics of onc, two or three dots followed by a comma. sometimcs in red. These wonderfully shaped fonns springing from the dip!e symbol have sometimes been caStigated as 'currupt' or' debased' compared to the dassic arrowhead. described in derog_1Iory terms such as 'loose horizontal s signs' or 'a particularly limp comma'. Their scribes had, it seems, 'forgotten ... how their elders and betters had indicated citations' (McGurk 1961: 7, 8)apparently writers were lax (or inventive) even in the ninth ccntury. But 'corrupt' or not, a central function of these varied squiggles was coming tu be a sign drawing attention tu passages from Biblical sources. For mediaeval Christian writers and readcrs their prime purpose was to signal scriptural citations, Inter extended to the writings of thl' patristic 'fathers uf the church'. [n the plentiful Latin cummentilril-s, the texts fur discussion were commonly marked by some form of marginal dipk In time these came to indude non-church works. A dipl! sign appeared for example in the margins in the tenth century 'Vl'nl'!i,m' manuscript of Humer, drawing
90

Wily Do We Quote?

the margin, refef('nces to the relevant passages from the New and Old Testaments (P,ukes 1992: 170-71). And throughout the centuries another strategy for indicating quoting in its various senses was to complement or bypass graphic markers and instead use a verb of speedl or writing, name of the original source, some recognised introductory word, or syntactical constructions that in themsl'lves indicated reported spel'ch - devices \Vdl used not only in the Bible but in texts throughout the world. The diplc-based symbol continued to play a part tn printed forms. By the fifteenth century the original arrowhead was somt'times sCilfcdy f('cognisable, but in one form or ,mother it had become a key graphic sign and like many other manuscript conventions was taken over into the new print technology. [t was not immediilldy obvious howewr just how it should be used or how citations could be signalled in print. There was the problem that marginal marks were just that- marginal. If they were to appear they would need to be added afler the main print block h'ld been set. Underlining biblical citations in red was not easily adaptable to the print technology of the time, so was dropped, and other devices employed such as brackets, differing typdace and the continued us;> of v;>rbs of speaking. By the l'arly sixteenth centu ry however comma-sh'lpe quotation marks, successors of the dipk, were being cut in metal type ,md, after various experiments with shape and placing, printing houses were beginning to construct their own standard type pieces for reproducing them. They were being more plentifully used, at least by some printers, by the sewnteenth century, mostly as doubled semicircul,u signs, now becoming known as 'inverted' or 'turned' commas. The signs gradually became more systematised and standa rdised: the use of type increasing! y ensured a greater consistency than in the variegated h,lndwritten manuscript scripts.But there was variety in print too. Although double commas were becoming an accepted signal for citation, they also appeared in other roles. Somelimt'5 they were basically references to side- or foot-notes, or - a common usage in the early centuries of printing - set allhe slarl or cnd of a line for emphasis. And even in thl'ir 'quoting' role there could be inconsistencies within the very same text as well as in different periods, regions and types of publication. There was at firsl no uniform 4 On quotation marks and other indicators in early print I h.we specially benefiled from DcCrazia 1991,1994, Hunter 1951, I...ennard 1991: esp. 32ff, 145ff, McKerrow 1927: 316ff, McMurtric 1922, Mitche1l1983, Mylne 1979, rarkes 1992: esp. 57ff. Sec also Blackbum 2(X)9 whim unfortunately 1 WaS not able to consult beforc this book went to press.

4. Quotation Marks

91

system as to which passages were marked, and individual compositors hold different strategies. One common pattern was the insertion of roughly semi-circular signs in the left margin, not unlike thl' earlier manuscript usages. To take account of the two facing pilges of bound books, they were sometimes moved to the right (outer) margin of the right hand page, the compositor inverting the type piece to filCt' the other way. At first they were, like the dip/e, set in the margin outside the line. Towards the end of the sixteenth century however they were beIng brought within the print measure, often repl'atcd at the start of each line throughout the quotation.

NO]'Hl1'fG, :~ABOUT f~r

j" thi

~~in!' U)'S che ill-

l)2lUJcd rc.a.tk'rr-...W1J:al thrn 'Ili:rtl!}'OU. 4; Joias till d\:\t hOllr-wilh;an opa:1-dil~C.-r,

fi/1l'"Jrj'Jd" To whicM :uU\rr, ritc:nJlI, N,/6i11g. i' No l-~..:t.r. Yorkk, t'h:t irnpolit(' I.' on is loo srofs 10 p1(~ Il"pon p$ c\otn from Ihe ,. pulpiT. Wh:lt cftd you do w'llh. the ,lIflit .( J'1I"l'llr-invcntc:d to :\\"oid iflfc8.ion? ,Dhl 41

J.

" not nudcmo(clle:,L1 Ql,ur re(vmc,hcfaprl;ca..ti-

to try Ibcm on, and m:ake Ihem fie c10re 1~ " If (0:, \v,h:\t: W;(S' Ibe ,t'o't:nl f''- Otlce more I r.c.ply...........Nolhing. .) oD

Ho." lI:ud ir

~J

m1-t!c.tr Eugcnih;.t,

19

be

I'r('lTfd1o dl\'uJgc,~n im"giz:ury tmlh, Of T~I,hc'r:1 (alfily. If 1 wc.h: 1.0 be:. UJlC'rJogal,cd lhtfe ttn )~n--I c:oo.td 2&.1, ·nolMng 1.0 the rCflly.but n;'tbilJ~ I-Rflbi.Hl"- nlllbitil!Fig. 4.10 L.."rence Sterne, Yorick's SelltimeHtal louruey, Dublin, 1769 p. 53. This use5 a combination of quoting indications: double COmmas down the edge, c105ing double commas within the line, dashes, opening capitals, verb8 of speech

and (pt'rhaps) italics (courtesy Da\'id Wilson)

92

Wily Do We Quote?

Sometimes single sometimes double, sometimes rilised, sometimes on or below the line, these comma-like marks continued to vary in placing ilnd uSilge. The lilte seventeenth-century printing of Williilm Congreve's [Ilcug nita fo r eXilmple followed the p rilctice of hilving the mil rks edge alld dosing commilS within the line, thus marking not justth(> start and continuMion of someone's speech but also its end. As exemplified in Fig. 4.10 this was somclimes combined with yet further indiciltions. lnvert(>d commilS could be r(>placed or combin(>d with othef signals like itillics, indenting, dashes, brackets or footnoting, often nmong other things ildding to the decorative effect on pilge. Verbs of spL'ech were commonly inserted between br.1ckets Of commilS in the text, with or without other indic.1tors. Even within a single book there could be varintions. In the extract from an eilrly ninelL·.mth-century book shown in Fig. 4.11 the first page shows quotation by both double comm.1S down the edgt· and dosing milrks within the line, while the next page nvoids milfginal marks ,1Itogl"ther and instead USL'S italics surrounded by double inverted commas within the line. Milrking the exact start ilnd finish of quoted words by quote signs witlr;'l the line was a significant change. They were sometimes combined with marginal marks but from the early eighteenth century began to stand on their own within the text. As novels increilsingly stilrted to use mimclic dialogue to represent the discourse of ordinary individuals in realistic rather than lofty language printl"rs needed conventions for distinguishing such dialogues in the text. Vnrious devices were tried, among them dashes, italics, ilnd new lines. It took some time for settled conventions to emerge, and even then thcse took different forms in different countries. But increasingly grilphic symbols, now incorporated within the line, became the main device. It is true thilt both double and single marks continued to coexist, sometimes apparently ilt random, sometimes to indicate alternating speakers in dialogue, direct ns ngninst reported speech or occnsionnlly in nested sequences. National and regional differences in the form nnd placing of quote marks were also e\'id(>nl. In some print traditions italics were used for quotations (rom written texis, dipk-like (orms to mark direct or indirect speech, or

4. Qllotation Marks

93

for emphasis. Other devices for separating particular passages from their surrounding tl'xt also continued, like layuut, special print, brackets and, especially, dashes. But in general the plilcing and USl'S of quutation marks were by the eighlL"l'nth and nineteenth centuries coming to coincide more nearly with modern practices. The diple and its descendants had moved from being an annutation sign, marginal in more than one sense, to a punctuation mark within the line. !

·doow".-on.t

f"'Il'\t~. ._""""

. _........ _


~ "'" t. """'""" .•

_ _10''<1_ y...u ....

~e-,

~

~

."J.,...... w.-t.o

.. o..ocry loI/oopM'1'O

.14-..... r.--..- I _ ,_ .Iotu....

'1loo' ' ''l-.l ,*_ .IMbW•.

_"'''''ob 1IopII1:.l __ .....-

.~~.,...,..

~LoMIClWt-;

oI

......,

•••

_"'"-I\4n"'C """",. T...~

• ,_ 10 "",... "J """'" T

",IIoC_ _

P"'~ 10 It-&odlli,, -'""fo;ill..., .....I~/

"'- <_._."'.r

1.~'lIodo,..

.. r...... ~ .... • ..s.... obU·

.... 11>..>

....a .. C~

10 ooly _ 7 10<1oo 1& I- obo .. """ et' • 1..-. n..(Il\ ""'''''' 10 " .. llot (. • oloI.o. no- 1....·..1Ao) ....1.......... lJoo • ~ ;" Uo ~ f"\llc"'. ~ ... .. .. • tu,

..,....,..,..wi

._

,loo iIui., . . So< _

.....:IT

JF""""~

,1;0<

It

....;"'1

,,-I<

qooond

•• . . . , " ' _

,.8._0('0' ' . .

-.fIobo
....w '"

'Lu <"tltboual Atl lilt "" .ltoa...... b -..... llo< 'is'" lo. 'J-'

_

I 1): I

J

tJI

..,.r..'......."

~l~

.J-~"""""

•

....

"'.......10 .. "",.,1-., ........., ,. t.,..

................. ,

~

....'""" .. \o<

l

...., '--'

~

11,,*_11 "" . . - _,..:..t, 1_ 10 ,._.., l - "'" ' .. Ill....... ~

" f

.. .. _ """' loo -"otirN ~ (_"" '"'"1 tnl ... w- J _ c_........ "~I

......

l..!"", ,,,, '-"""","

, ..,- ",....

~...,..

..... '" lo'OIllo .\"';co, "" "" ~~-~ ""'; w. ..r.... .,.,. I,

lo

'"""_ . ,

.( '.. r...a.


" ,.... ~ ... ~,_~. ,500 ."'''_'1'' I, _

t ..Il .. -."",~

11'_'" \ ' _ l I l l t _

•.- _,/.,--,r"_ //,. r...,..... n.\"'- •• """"'" ...._ r~ ,lI. ~'ol'" J.\

If _ ...

",orlo ,

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,• ,\_Mm ,( ,"'" ...., ....'.-..llW.

.,.:1-.

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(.'

.., _ _ I ,,, 'ho.

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dou, """ ot.obo , 1:W"'\oM., olo-..Jol .........., I. l·"r.•_

.... 1I,

...... tu,

, " ....,...

1)

".. • 5lloIo_ ,.

_I.'

.... _"" Iiool.tr

'noIr)

........a,

.,...,. U .. .,

n" .. ,.. _I • ,.clIrrt J. r...

oI,""t;'

"'tI~ .....

UO!I._1loo .... ~ ••

Il'_l.,~

b"~

;

I;

! \0•• ......

.w"

I"-W _ ~ r... ...... _

..

Fig. 4.11 Thr Crisis of thr Sug"r Colon;rs. L"ndon, ·1802,. pp. 131-32. This early nineteenth-century pllblication illustrates a varielV of different quoting indications in two sequential pages: on th" first pagl', doub1e commas down the edge (but within the hne) alongside the quoted words. and dosing marks inside the line (replaced in one case by an asterisk ,md footnote); on the nexl. no edge marks but italics surrounded by daub]" inverted commas (courtesy David Murray) Th~

system is still far from uniform. Long-u,ed strategies for marking quotation continue, like speech verbs. gr.lmmatical construction, layout, tl'xtual appearance. and altcrnative marks such as dilshcs or (common now as in the past) italics. But the diple-based forms remain the most visible and most constantly cited symbols wh"n quotation is discussed,

94

Wily Do We Quote?

and in their continental chevron versions (" ») e\'en more directly allied to the original arrowhead than in the cu rved inwrted commas of Englishlanguage usage, Given this complex background it is, then, scarcely surprising to encounter contending views and practices around quotlllion marks today or thl' varying shapL'S and settings in which these marks are depicted. The contemporary British observers' comments on the variety and elusiveness of quotation indicators summarised in the last chapter were well founded. Among them arc the shifts bl'tween double and single marks and their diverse interpretations and appliClllions, and the (apparent) alternatives achieved through differing forms of layout, lettering, punctuation or verbs of speech or writing. There are dasllL'S, colons, n('w paragraphs, indents, footnolL'S, special titles or headings, or (sometimes) no visible signal at all - a multiplicity of devices for indicilting others' words, some, ilS we hilve SN'n, dllling back many centuries, others exploiting modern technologic,ll rL'Sources unavailable earlier but now increasingly exploited in both hard copy and web displays. Milrking quotiltion is il multiple ilnd vilriable process even in this age where we tend to think of most ilspects of writing and. especially. print as stand'Hdisl'd. The long history of diple development illso underlies the ilpparently contrilsting fonnats taken on by quote marks in differing print traditions. Quute marks nuwadays do not come just in the familiar English furmilt uf pairs of inverted commas above the line, but also as curly or strilight, as angular rather than curved. upright or oblique, below or beside the line, alunl' rather than in paired sets, ur absent altogether. There are the 'duckfoot' or guillcmct marks of French tradition (literally 'Little Willy', after the Sixteenth-century typecutter Guillaume [WiIlLunl Le Be), also known as che\'rons or angle quutes and widdy used in Latin, CyrilJic and Greek typogrilphy.' Chinese and Japanese scripts in the PilSt lileked punctuation, but with developing print technologies ilround the lilte nineteenth century they too sometimes started using printed block-shaped corner-type marks J and J . Thegraphic symbols (or quoting milke their ilppearance in many different guises but in a sense come within onc broild family, with roots in the dil'le.

r-

r--

5 '10 add to the variety, I'rench and ttalian practice is usually to enclose the quoted words with olltu>ard-pointing chevrons « -- ", with single marks for nested inner quotes. In other print conventions, notably Cerman, t~e direction is often the "'verse: »-- ~ and, --', in others yet again» --", orthe sbgle or double sloped" -- .. Or cu r"ed " .. " .

4. Quotation Marks

95

Overall then, what wc have is less some straight-line development into print uniformity than a series of still-continuing alternatives and variants. Unlike the relative standardisatiun uf spelling, punctuatiun has remained uncertain, above all in the inconsistencies over indicating quotation. Out of this long history of visual signs two striking points emerge: first, the varidy, indeed e1usivenL'Ss, of devices to indicate others' words; and, s{'cond, the long but mutating roots of many of these signals, most notably the prominence In the influential Europeiln written trilditions of fonns ultimately developing from the ancient Grc('k diple.

4.2. What do they mean? But ilS interesting as the origin and changing shilpcs of quot{' marks is the question of jusI what they convey. This is a more complex set of issues than at first .lpp{'ars, and will need to be t.lckled from several angles. For though quote marks may nowadays seem just part of the normal rules of grammar, their changing rol{'s ov{'r time ar(' not a merely t{'Chnical millt{'r but link{'d intimately with th{'ir social and cuhural s{'ttings. Onc way to start is 10 consider the vicissitudes of the English word 'quote'. Its first recorded m{'aning, back in Ih{' fourte{'nlh century, was not at all to enclose a quot{'d passag{'. It was 'to milrk (il book) with numlx>rs (ilS of chaplers, ('Ic.) or with marginal references 10 olher pilSSilges or works', .md, by th{' sixiL'enth cenlury, '10 give Ih{' reference tu (il passage in a book), by specifying the pag{', chapter, {'le., where it is to be found' (Oxford Engli.'
96

Wily Do We Quote?

It is not difficult to see the developing connection between the ideil of identifying text by il marginal mark or number, ilnd that of the modern 'quoting'. But it was not until around the seventeenth c..ntury thilt the meaning of 'quote' was ilpparently moving from marking a reference or citation by a marginal Signal to that of reproducing words from elsewhere, or th.. term 'quotation' used to refl'r to the act of quoting or the quoted passage itself. It WilS only then that 'quotation' was tilking on something like the modern sense of, as the Oxford EIISIi~1l Dic!iO/Ulr.¥ has it,'a passage quoted from a book, speech, or oth;>r source; (in modern use esp.) il frequently quoted passage of this nature'. It was thus many centunes before dipk-type symbols were associilted with our contemporary meilning of quotation and und..rstood as a way of directly marking iln eXilct quoted passage by opening and closing signsbefore, that is, they acqUired their modern role of identifying il demmcilted written excerpt as someone else's words. It has been even more recently still that they have assumed the now·familiar function of ('nclosing actual or fictionill diillogue. One crucial factor in this history of quote marks and their meanings has been the chilnging treatments of wntten texts and the contexts in which they lire used. The purpose of diple and other non·alphabetic graphiC marks was for many centunl'S tied into reilding illoud. In earlier texts, especially thosl' prior to print. the grilphic symbols we now interpret as punctuation marks were guides to reading aloud rather than grammatical indicators. They indicilted to the reildl'r the points at which to pause, how long the pauses should bc, ilnd where to take breath. Such aids were sometimes fairly sparse. When texts were in a familiar J.lnguage or, like the repeated liturgic,ll texts in Christian worship, well·known to the reader, little guidanCl' WilS needed. But over the centuries there were chilngcs both in the way texts were written - with or without word separation for example - and in the settings in which they werl' read. In the sixth and seventh centuril'S scribes started inserting ffiilrks more plentifully, especially in Irish and Anglo· Saxon contexts where many readers no longer had Latin, the medium of writing, as their first language. Chilnging ilpproaches to written texts over lime hild impliciltions for the meaning of these now more plentiful grilphic marks. Reading illoud long H'mruned important (and 'lrguably still does). But silent reilding gradually became more recognised, the sense to be taken directly through the eye to

4. Quotation Marks

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the mind. In some circles this dated back many centuries, but for many a key transition came in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Alongside this went a move from a performance~focused to a grammatical view of punctuation. Graphic symbols, increasingly prolific and systematic with the development of print and further codified in the eighteenth century, started being inkrprcled less as pragmatic aids for delivery than as indicators of the logical structure of sentences. They had become marks of punctuation - a mntter of syntnx nnd grammnr rnther than oral delivery.' This approach baSically coincides with contemporary underslandings of the meaning of quote marks. Unlike in earlier times, they are now broadly assimilnted to punctuation and seen as a specialised aspect of grammar, wdl ex",mpJified in the attitudes of many of the mass observCfs as they associated the use of quote marks with granunatical correctness. Equally important hnvc been changing views about whal counts as 'quoting' - or, rathf.'r, about whose words are recognised as worth ilttending to and in what form. This goes bt'yond a matter of graphiC marks into evaluative judgements about whnt words and voices should be singled out. Passages from notable writers like Plato and Homer as well as biblical sourc",s were signalled by dip/es in early GrL'Ck papyri. In the influential Lltin writing tradition of the West, dominated as it came to be by Christian writers, it was Old Testament passages that WCIX' for long sanctioned through graphiC marks or other quoting indications. Sometimes different forms of the diple were used to distinguish betwccn pagan and Chrisliiln or biblical and non-biblic.ll sources; in some SY'iac manuscripts different marginal signs were used for orthodox or non-orthodox passages. For long it was predominantly biblical citiltions that were highlighted in Western writing conventions - quotation quintessentially appertained to the scriptures. In time the dipk milrks and parallel indicators like colour, marginal annotation or special fonts were extended to other revered authorities, especially the church fathers - another long ilnd powerful source for citiltion. Proverbs ilnd other well-worn sayings came to be marked loo, as well as extracts from the ancient classical sources, and in Renaissance texts 7 On changing interpretations and practices of punctuation see for example Honan 1960, Ong 1944 and approaches in such earlier treati~s as Robertson 1785 and Wilson 1844. On aspects of the history of (Western) punch,ation gen"rally andlor on quote marks Parkes 1992 is a wonderful source, also (among others) Baker 1996, d" Grazia 1994, Garbcr 2003: l'rdace and Chapters 1-2, Hodgman 1924, Lennard 1991, McGurk 1961, Mitchell 1983, Murray 2008 (on Syriac manuscripts), Saenger 1997, Wingo 1972.

98

Wily Do We Quote?

sententious silyings like commonplilces, ilphorisms ilnd proverbs were illso indicilted by marginal marks. These marks signalll'd pil5s,lges from written sources, from the past, ilnd primarily from ('n through such verbal dues as 'he annuunced', 'they replied', 'he spoke thus to th{' crowd', and so on. This was often followed either by.,n indirect paraphrase of what they had said or by lengthy rhetorical speeches with beginning and end marked by the context. The sense was clear without the need for quote marks. From around the eighteenth centu ry however novelists were starting to pTl'Sent sequences of realistic dialogue with rilpid repartee ilnd interaction in direct speech ilnd less fonnal languag{'. The status of such dialogu{'s had to be c1ilrified in some way that avoided tediously rcpeilting 'he said' or 'she said' betwl>('n each interchilnge. For this many writers and printers 8 On the ilbo"" see espeCially de Grazia 199], ]994 and sources mentioned th"re.

4. Quotation Marks

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turned to quote marks, sometimes combined with alternative markers like dashes or italics. Inverted commas became a common convention for marking thLose imagined dialuguL"S, .1dupted as an appropriat.. signal fur demarcating the direct speech of individuals. More rec..ntly still the spoken words of ordinary speakers remembered or recorded from everyday situations have alsu oc>cume recognised as suitable for distinguishing by quute marks, and simil,uly; thuugh still sometimes with a certain unease, the transcribed utterances of speakers on radIO or television. in such contexts the m",aning of quote marks is not just a matter of grammar, the rules of writing, th", shape of visual signs over the centuries, or even just of changing lilerolfY and media styles, though these have all played a part. It is also, more radically, tied into changing perceptions of the significance of particular divine and human agents and how tu positiun their words, Over lime there have been alter
100

Wily Do We Quote?

early days of the emergence of vernacular prose it was the prose which WilS 'diffl'rent'.9 In some texts brackets are used to add a verb of speech, onCl' a cummun fOITn and still sometimes found today, as in ' ... That was the last straw (she added) on top of so much else.. .' where the bracketed aside might in some ways seem the voice from outside, with the rest b
4. Quotation Marks

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hero, the disguised Sir Kenneth,
Evident in nowlists like Jane Austen, Waiter Scot! or Gustave Flaubert, this styll' had bl'CQme widt'Spread in European fiction by the mid-nineteenth century. 11 was forwarded too by dev(']opments in psychology l'l'CCh or thought. The style hill' been nptly described as 'doublevoiced' where it becomes
n-

102

Wily Do We Quote?

The interpenetration between the voices becomes a relative matter. For even when this kind of represented speech is not explicitly indic<1led, the tints of the hero can sometimes so culuur the exprLossion that the intunatiuns of author and charactcr(s) are intermingled and it is a moot point which voice is predominant - and for whom - at anyone point. Again it becomes a question as to which l'1L'ments are the main 'narrative', which the cited words or thoughts of other characters - if indeed it still makes sense to plot that separation at all. Here too perhaps we need to question the stillembedded perception of 'straight' reporting being the 'nonnal' function of language with other representations being the 'marked' or intrusive ones, and recognise instead the subtly tinged staging of multiple intersecting voices. Other developments in the literary scene over the last century have led certain theorists to suggest further that the older distinctions between quoted and non-quoted material have in any case been dis.lppearing. Since the end of the ninetL'(>nth century, they would argue, the concept of quoting as a separate activity has been eroded in the writings of authors like Joyce or Brecht who regularly import large tracts of text and merge them with their own withuut the Signal of quot.ltion marks. In such contexts, it would S('em, it is no longer a case of some discrete distinction between prim1lfY and secondary text, separated by quote marks, but of networks of reminiscences, rderences and echoes blending together on the written page. In such settings the once-recognised borders round' quoting' seem to have lost their meaning. Such debates again bring hume the difficulty - at times at least - uf trying to assign certain units uneqUivocally to the category of 'quotation', and others not. It seems indeed that which kinds of excerpts or voices fife or are not Signalled by quute marks can vary, eVL'n within a Single language at a particular time. Rather than a transparent grammatical system, di verse gen res, groups, and traditions have their own conventions, differing crossculturally as well as changing across history. And there is yet a further complication. The fundamental meaning of quote marks is conventionally delineated as based on a distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' speech. To surround words by quote signs signifies that wc hilve somCQne's exact written or spoken words and excludes the possibility that it might merely be a paraphrase, su rmise or reinterpretation. Inside the signs are the direct words of some other voice, marked as of a different status from a second-hilnd processing or rcshilping of them. The

4. Quotation Marks

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old contrast between direct 'straight' speech (IJratill recta) and the 'bent' indirect words of oratil and usc discuss.ed in the linguistics and philosophy literalu re On quoting. 12 On thiS see Tann"n 1989, esp Chapter 4, also Robinson 2006: 220ff.

104

Wily Do We Quote?

rilther thiln il replicil of the old, just ilS something silid in one situiltion Ciln never be copied in precisdy the same way in another. The setting, import, purpose, even the ilctual or intended iludil'nce an' all dlilnged - subtly and indirectly perhaps but different nonetheless. Anyone who repeilts the words of others, whether as writer, speaker, or broadcaster, cannot totally avoid letting thl'ir own voice come through and may even make ,1 point of doing so. It becomes il matter of reconstruction and recontextuaJisation rather than of precise repetition, where the new us('r of the words, whether overtly or implicitly, is communicating a particular attit\lde to the words or to their original speilker in this new enactment, mimipulating the iludience's interpretation. The quoted words and their import might indeed be closer or more distant to the original event and their recognition as 'the same' can vary according 10 the current conventions in play, even according to individual interpretations - and wishes. But there is a sense in which they can never full.1f be the same. And if there is necessarily alw'lYS some clement of reformulation in the rc-presentation of someone else's words, this once again blurs the ideil of 'verbatim repetition' which had seemed to proVide the cornerstone for the direct/indifl'Ct contrast and thence for the meaning of quote mmks. The official documentary record of speeches in the British pilrliilment in thl' long-iluthorised pages of Hansard provides a neat case of purportedly eXilct rendering of words delivered. [t is sCilfcdy a literal replicil. For onl' thing it uses current conventions of transcription to transmute what WilS spoken into the sentences and format of written prose. For another, rather than automatic repdition of what WilS said - though that is how it is widely perceived and presented - the speakers hilve the opportunity to scrutinise the transcript of their recorded performance, and have it altered for clarity before publication. In the anonymous verse And SO while the gI"'at ones depart to their dinner, The secretary stilYS, growing thinner and thinner Racking his brain to record and report VVhilt he thinks thillthey think that they ought to hil,·e thought. The once firmly established dichotomy between 'direct' and 'indirect' speech is also up for question in comparative linguistic terms: languages have differing syntaxes for conveying reported speech. In English or German the distinction is indeed prominent, marked by such signals as word order, time words, or shifting person, mood or tense, often further validated by the presence or i'lbsence of quote marks in written versions. But these forms

4. Quotation Marks

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are far from universal. In Russian it can be ambiguous whether a sentence should be read as a direct or indirect report of speech; in Japanese even mort' so. Sometimcs - as in some Australian and Nt'palL'Se languagL'S, ur, as I found in my experience of transcribing from oral delivery, in the West African Limbalanguage - there is little or no linguistic differentiation at all. A comparative analysis revt'als many differt'l1t strategies for conveying the closeness or distance of the reproduction of others' words or of the current speaker's certainty about them. These may revolve round such multiple issues as different voices, degrL'(!s of authenticity; or levels of authority, and rely on a rich diversity of linguistic devices that can classified in such terms as 'moods', 'quot.1tive markers', ·evidentials'. 'hearsay particles', 'reportive verbs' and so on. Amidst this plentiful complexity it now SL-ems pref<'rable to speak not of some universally applic.lble dichotomy betwcen directly quoted and indirect spc<::ch but rather of 'tendencies' (as it is put by Hartmut Haberland 1986: 248): a matter of degr(>(' and diversity along a numbt'r of dimensionsY The 'frcc indirect' or 'reported' speech of novels also challenges the dichotomy. This has been seen as a kind of cross between direct ,lnd indin'cl speech, a third form ovt'r and above the c1.1ssic categories. Here the discou rse is carryi ng the voices both of a gi vcn cha racter llnd of the cont rolling narrator, thC' two seeping into each othC'r. This doubll'-voicednC'ss has been most visibly displayed as deliberate style in nuvels. But it gues further, for representing or evoking the speech or thoughts of (perhilps) a range of voices whilst also retaining one's own also occurs more widely. It is far from uncommun for an expressiun to be both quuted, as from someone else's words, and used as his or her own by the current speaker or writer - a kind of 'hybrid' quotation as it has bem called (De Brabanter 2(05). Another way uf looking at it is less ,lS une idt'ntifiable stylistic device than as a dimension, varying in detail and explicitness, that runs through many forms of speaking and writing. The once-accepted direct/indirect contrast again turns out to bC' shaky, and with it onC' of the apparent definitions of what quote marks Signify. Even in languages that, like English. have a direct/indirL'Ct distinction, the application of quote marks to create this divide can be more ambiguous and inconsistent than elementary grammar books divulge. Jane AustC'n, classic writer as she is, is famous, at iC'ast her published vC'rsions, for 13 On these issu"s SL't' ref,:,r"nces in Noks t 1 ~nd 12 above, especially Coulmas 1986,

also Blakemore 1994, Hill and Irvine 1993: 209, ralrner t 994, Janssen and Van der Wurff 1996, Suzuki 2007.

106

Wily Do We Quote?

putting inv"rted commas not just around the' direct' words spoken by h"r characters but also dround what some might classify as indirect speech in sume views a 'wrong' us" of quote marks. H"r" is Emma, the Cl'ntral character, trying to draw out the reserved Jane F
In English contcmpor
4. Quotation Marks

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as we have seen, contentious enough. But to this have to be added those many other uses to which quote marks arE' often put in current practicE': used for example in lieu uf apostrophes or plurals, for highlighting parlicular word(s), for surrounding the names of reopients or senders on gret'tings cards, for warning. for dccorati.,c display. They occur in such notices as 'Please "Do Not" deposit cash' (sign on bank deposit drawer), or 'Only "2" children allowE'd in the shup at any time'.'" Often the purpose is less any indication of exact reproduction than to ('mphasisc and dr,lIv attention - a role decried by pundits today but onc, as we hav(' Sl'l'n, wilh a long history. It would be easy to multiply similar examples. The point here is not that some writers arc lax in their use of quote marks or mistaken in seemingly claiming '('xact' quotation whether in novels, infonnal letters, Hansard reporls or flamboyant notices, but thal what counts as 'quotation' and how it is treated and marked varies according to viewpoint, ideology, setting and interpretation. As diversities from past and present mingle, the appar('f)t inconsistencil'S af(> less a matter of irnperfro training or even of changing history than a facet of people's heterogeneous practice. Some of thcse many usages are doubtless marc practised in some settings - or among soml' individuals or some g"nres -Ihan oth~rs, and cutain ideologil'S and institutions arc indeed more powerful than others, But in the end there is no total consensus about quote marks and their m<.'aning. Th" history uf quote marks is thus a winding and confuSl'
108

Wily Do We Quote?

Looked at in historical and comparative terms, as well as in the ambiguities of actual practice, il becomL'S hard 10 continue with the idea that quote marks delineate suml' cunstant and cruss-culturally valid meaning. They
4.3. Do we need them? [t is ch'ar then thal quote marks as we picture them today have been far from immutable. They arc l'Ssential neither for reading .110ud nor for syntactical understanding; Iheir incidence hils varied over the ages and according 10 situation; thl'Y hilve taken - and take - many differenl forms; there have been changing views ilbout whilt they me.m; uncertainties and inconsislencies surround their exact usage; and some believe Ihey are by now outdated. So -do we still need quute marks? In some ways perhaps nol. The idea and practice of quoting turns out to be elusive and certainly more complex Ihiln implied in the primers that present them as obligatury and uncontentious. For cenluriL'S many texts managed without quote marks of any kind - ancient classical texts, writing in Hebrew or Sanskrit, eilrly biblical triln>lations. Clilssie figures of English literature like ShakL'Speare, William Blake or early ninelL'l'nthcentury poets such as Keats made little or no use of quote marks, their apparent presence being modern editors' revisions. It was not until the eighteenth century that the need for quotl' marks lu I'ncluse wurds from elsewhere was being laid down in grammilr books. Certain textuill genres, both now and earlier, in any case i1void graphic quote symbols. They play little if any parI in some legal documents and liturgil'S, in many personal letters or em ails, or for words and extracts in dictionaries or
4. Quotation Marks

109

evcn the best one - for signalling the range of meanings which have been attached to them. Then' are after all many uther devices fur indicating uthers' words. Writers can attribute some special status 10 a piece of text through its wording or by visual indicators like layout, colour, italics, special scripts, brackets, boxes, headings, dashes and similar markers. Some of these devices have in the past sometimes proved more effective than the thenmarginal marks in giving a precise dIfferentiation from the surrounding text through markers like underlining, colouring or capitalising. It can be urged tou that quote marks carry a further disadvantage. For if in onc way carrying notilbly ambiguous meanings, in another they impose tOt) exact an impression. They seem 10 corrunit to an all-or-nothing distinction by which words either ilre or are not within quote marks, un onc side or the other of il divide. And yet how often, like several mass observl'rs, we have hesitated over whether something is or is not quoted from elsewhere or over how far it is just part uf the cummon vocabulary even if still perhaps retaining some air of otherness, The presence - or the absence - of quotes can feel too definitive, foreclosing questions that might better be l(Oft opaque. Marjorie Garber (2003: 24ff) gi ves a telling example from the conclusion to Keilts' Ode to a Grecian Urn When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remam in midst of other woe, Than ours, a friend to man, 10 whom thou say'st, Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Edilors have adopted contrary positions over whether Ihe last two lines should or should not have quote marks round them, and if so where (therc werc none in the original transcript). Is it the voicc of the urn (wi th quole milfks therefore), or of the poet (without)? Or is 'Be.wty is lrulh, truth bcauty' to be taken as some kind of well-worn aphorism? The use or the avoidance of quote marks is to assert too clear an answer. Or again, as Kellell pointed oul many years ago, sometimes inverted commas draw too much attention when;, perhaps what was intended was merely 10 'give the rCilder a slight titillation of the memory - a gentle feeling th.ltlhis was the old refurbished' (1933: W-ll). Quole marks are too crude a signal, it CQuld be said, for the subtleties of submerged or fading quoliltion, allusion, parody, intertextu,llity, leaving no room for finer gradations. Indeed in

110

Wily Do We Quote?

certain literary circles there have been moves to forsake them altogether as meaningless or miS!e,lding. Others have argued fur replacing qllUte marks by sumething mure exact. In 1968 for example I. A. Richards noted the multiple purposes for which we 'overwork this too serviceable writing device' (Richards 1968: ix) and went on to SUggL"St nine contrasting forms to distinguish the differL'nt meanings. Among them were

? --- ?

equivaknt to 'Query: what meanmg?'

! ._- ! a 'Good heavens! What-a-way-to-talk' attitude. It may be read Tshriek! if we have occaSion to read it aloud i --- i

other senses of the word may intervene... 'Intervention likely'

di --- di

'Danger! Watch olll!' (based on Richards 1968: x-xi).

He adopted the system in his own text 'It is somewhat absurd', he urged. 'that writers have not long ago developed a notation system for this purpose which would distinguish the vanous duties these little cummas hanging about uur words are charged with' (Richards 1968: ix-x). It is hardl y surprising however that this complex system did not catch on, demanding as it did a sophisticalI'd - and pt·rhaps near-impossible - precisiun of thought as well as of typography. The same seems to have happened with the literary attempts to do away with quote marks altogether: though adopted in some settings and by some individuals, these do not look like becoming generally accepted. Inverted commas seem destined to stay. In any case, despite the problems round qllOte marks and their usage, it seems unlikely that 'quoting' in some sense or .muther, however elusive, is really set to disappeoH. Kor can it be assumed that we have no uses for the devices employed to give an indication, however vague, uf some of the manifold ffil'anings they imply. It is striking how deeply engrained seems to be the practice not only of drawing on the words and voices of others but also, in some cases at least, uf at tht, S.lme time marking the fact that we are duing su - an enduring facet of human life and action, it seems, in wltich quote marks however ill-defined have a part. Shot through as they are with continuing overtones from earlier shapes and usages they cuntinue significant in contemporary practice.

4. Quotation Marks

111

And tlUlt itself illuminates another important factor in the life of quote marks. Perh.lpS in some a-cultural uniwrsc wc do not nL>cd them or could adopt alternative or eVL'n preferable devices for marking others' words and voices. But long estOlblished conventions relating to the written word, however confused, are hard to unsettle. They Me buttressed by general habit, by the prL'SsUf('S of educational and typographic institutions and by the long history thOlt lies behind them. Our practices are no doubt likely to drift Olmong emerging OlS well as older pOllterns, and changes as well as contmuity arc always in the air. But any project to dislodge quote marks wholes.."!le, hO\wver inconsistent, ambiguous, shifting or unsatisfing scripts, have re,'ppeared in print and arc still acti vc on the web - a remarkable example of flexible continuity ,1CroSS the millennia. But for all their continuity quote marks possess no universal or absolute meaning. Wc haw to read them with caution. For they have in the end to be understood not in themselves but in the light of inl.'vitably changing settings marked by the interplay of diverse cui tu rill, political, linguistic and technological conditions.

s. Harvesting Others' Words: The Long Tradition of Quotation Collections

II is going to MlUnd

d~ft.

bllt r always feel a connection 10 the wisdom of people through the ages (24-year-old librarian from Birmingham)'

Since the sea of onginal bcoks is like a great and wide ocean that cannot be explored by just anyone, it seemed to me more useful to have a few sayings of the doctOr! at hand rather than loo many

(Thomas of lrdand 13(6)' Jcwds five-wards-long That on the stretch'cl fore-finger of all time Sparkle forever (Tcnnyson Pri"ce:<~ iii 3;2)

M;my people today have a collection of quotations on their shelvC'S - not ('v('fyonl.', but nol just the highly learned rither, Among the twenty-first century British observers of Chapters 2 and 3 some had gathered their own collections over the yC
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WhyDoWcQllotc?

processes exemplified in the firsl chapters nor, as in Q,apter 4, to quotation mnrkers in the flow of wri\t('n words. Here we nre denling with shnrply demnrcatcd excerpts, shurt sayings picked out from the iJUlumcrable words of human beings to be preserved in deliberately constructed stores. But from whnt background and to whnt purpose hnve such collections been constructed and transmitk-d? Arc they just an idiosyncrasy of today with our widesprend liter
5.1. A present-day example: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Let me again begin wilh one specific casc. Here il i5 TIle Oxford DictiOllary of QllolaliMl5, lhe collection most often referred 10 by the British observers. lhis is publiciltion currently in many homes in Britilin and abroad too, 11 consistent best seller in Britain ilnd by many regarded as the iconic reference book. By 2009 The O.iford Dictionary ofQllottlli'lIls was in its 7th edition, a milssive

11

volume of over 1100 pages containing 20,(XXl quotalions. It is il mix of old and new, literary ilnd ephemeral, prose and verse. Some are familiar indeed: They shJU grow not old, JS We thJt Jre left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At Ihe going down of the ~un and in the morning We will remember them (LJurence Binyon 'For the fJllen'). He shall fe<.'d his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the IJmb, with hi, ann, and eJ.rrythem in his bo5om, and shall gently lead th~ that are with young (The Bible (authoriscd ,·er5ion), Isaiah chapler 40 verse 11) Others are perhaps more ('Sotl'ric but stilllowd by some, like Gi,"C me bUI one firm spot on which to 5tand, and I will move the earth

(Archimedes, on thc action of a lever)

My dog! What remedy remains, SIllCe, teach you all! can, J ,;e,:, you after all my pains, So much resemble man! (William Cowper 1793 'On a spaniel called Beau, killing a young bird')

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Thl're ar(' numerous "xc('rpts from sourc"s like Shak<>spearl', Millon or The Bl!
-

--

fig. 5.1 first pnge of nu O:r:ford Dic/ionnry of OUOII"iol15, 7th edition, 2009. © OXJurd Oictionnry i>jQ""lnti<'lIS, 7th edition, editt'dby Elizabeth Knoll'J~s (2009), reproduced by permIssion of Oxford University Press (www.oup.com)

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How did this collection of quotations originate, and what were the purposes for which it was compiled? A brief account of its setting in time and place gives 50ml' indicMion uf the conventiuns and procesSl.'S which underlay its compilation.! Alre,ldy under discussion early in the twentieth century, the first edition of OOQ (its handy abbreviation) appeared in October 1941. It was an immediate SUCCl'SS, acclaimed, as thl' 1l111~tratcd LOlldon News had it, as 'combtnmg authOrity with charm'. The first pnnting of 20,000 sold out in iI month ilJld the publishers wer(' soon battling with wartime restrictions to get a reprint out by 1942. OOQ was, naturally, influenced by the viewpoints of the time - or. more precisely, by thl' dominant figures involved in its planning and compilation. Elizabeth Knowles, its recent editor, described the periud when plans for the first edition were being argued over in the 193Os: They were looking at a dictionary of <Juotalion. which would have a primarily literary base, and which would include quotations from major writers likely to be quoted in English by the literate and cultured person (ODQ6 2004, Introduction: xii). That first ('clition did make room for a f('w advertisements ilfld popular songs, among them soldiers' songs from the first world war such as 'Pack up your troubl('s in your old kit bag' and music-hall favourites like 'We don't want to fight, but by jingo if we do ... '. It claimed to look less to the compilers' favourites than to quotations that werc 'familiar' and 'current' - those that 'might be found at some time in onc or other of the leading articles uf the d'lily and w('ekly papers with their wide range of matter - political. literary, descriptive, humorous, &c' (ODQ1 1941: xi). As the Introduction had it, This is not a privilte anthology but a collection of the quotations which the public knows best' (OOQl1941: iv). Nevertheless it could not escape being pre-eminently literary and angloccntric, and the 'public' whose familiilr quotations were envisaged was an educated onc. The introductory note hum 'The compi1e~' made clear that it was for the 'literary' reader. They opened by invoking Johnson's view that 'Oassical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world' and continued J This account of ODQ relies heavilyon information in its seven successive editions, th" Oxford University I'ress webs it" and th" Oxford University Press (OUI') Archives. 1 am particularly indebted to Elizabeth Kncwles, till 2007 rubtishing r>.lanager, Oxford Quotations Dictionaries, not only for her publications, both hardcopy and electronic, but also for her generous personal assistance. I am also most gmtdul to Martin Maw for arrnnging access 10 thc OUP Archives.

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The committ.... haV!' tri..d to k....p in mind that a numberof differ..nt kinds of r..ad..rs would be likely to use the book: these are the 'professionals', such as journalists, writers, public speakers, &c., the cross-word devotee, since this form of inlelk'CIual amusem('nt appears to have com(' to stay; th(' man who has in his mind either a few or many half·completed or unidentified quotations which he would like to complete or verify; and (since, as Emerson wrote - 'Ily n"cessity; by proclivity - and by delight, wC all quot<") ",'..ryonc who has found joy and beauty in the words of th.. writers and wish..s to renew lh"l ple".u,-e by 1l~in8 the word. """in - he whom perhap~ John.OIl meant by 'the li!crary man' (ODQl 1941: Xii), It was produced, in other words. in a setting 'imbued' as it was put from a later vantage point, 'with the culture... of the first quarter of the twentieth century in Britain, and especially the literature of the ,1ncient and the English-spe'lking world that was thl'n read and studied ill home, school, and university' (ODQJ 1980: ii). The Greek illld Latin c1ilssics were then reguJilfly quoted by Members of Parliament, and compilers ilnd readers of the time had mostly been to Oxford or Cambridge and came from it school background of learning literary passages by heart. 'Opening the pages is rilther like walking into a traditional study lined with leather-bound volumes' (ODC?6 2004: xlii). For its selection of 'familiar' quotations, therefore, the 1941 edition looked largely to the established writers of the past. The most quoted writers, the compilers noted, w<:'re Browning, Byron, Cowper, Dickens, Johnson, Kipling, Milton, Shakespeare, Shelley, Tennyson and Wordsworth. There were separilte sections for 'anonymous', for ballilds, nursery rhymes, quotiltions from Punch, the Bible and the Book of Common Pr.l yer. The quotations were predomin.lI1tly in English but there was a foreign section with English tritnslillions fTom modern European languages. from classicill Greek and. more extensive! y, from Latin. As the compilers explained Latin is no longer a normal part of the language of educated peopl.. as it was lO the eight('cnth century; but from that age cert~in classical phrases have survi\'ed to become part of contemporary speech and writing_ It is lhese 'survivals' that hav(' b."en included here together with a few of the sayings or writings of the Schoolm..n and early theologia.'ls (ODQl 1941: xiii), Apilrt from songs from the 1914-18 WilT clnd il few advertiSl.-'1llC1lts and slogans, there were few recent items - topical quotiltions were not of interest. ODQ has continued in print ever since. Still il leading favourite, its successi ve editions hilve buih on its predecessors but changed over time.

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This was partly in length - the first edition had around 11,000 quotations, the most recent nearly twice that - but also in its coverage and to an extent its aims. It is interesting tu fulluw the mutations uver the years. The second edition, 1953, followed lengthy debates by a revision committee. It was in part re-organised: previously separate Sl.'ctions brought into the alphabetic sequl'nce, and quotations individually numbl'red through the page-still the format today. Apart from some Second World War quotations, however, notably by Winston Chu rchill, there was little change in content or overall philosophy. About 95% remained the same. The changes in the third (1979) editiun were more substantial and, indeed, controversial for only about 60% of the second edition survived..\lursery rhyml-'S, songs and advertisements were ousted and slogans and items from the world of 'bruildcasting and other mass-mediil' discouraged. The upshot was a re-ilssertion of the established literary canon 10 the disadv,lntage of recent examples or current affairs. Subsequent editions looked more widely. Songs ilnd hymns were illlowed back, as were proverbs, nursery rhymes and recent popular sayings, The press has trawled more widely as the years have gone on, and now has a growing database of quotations from its reading progmmme plus electronic feedb.lck and questionnilires on the web. The traditional anglocentric focus has also been shifting with the inclusion of more from non-British authors and from non-Christiiln silcred texts, A new perspective on what kind of words could count as quotation has accompanied a growing recognition of its increaSingly multi-cultural readership and some widening of the earlier focus on classic texts of the PilSt. The current edition is still a recognisably British production, But besides the traditional literary quotations it now has a greater proportion of ildvcrlising slogans, film lines, epitaphs, and popular 'misquotations' as well as new entries reflecting recent sayings like George W Bush's 'Brownie you're doing a heck of a job' in the aftermath of the 2005 Katrina hurricane or Paris Hilton's 'Dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in'. But only those can be included, the editor insisls, that look as if they have caught on, likely to become 'lasting' - a necessary reqUirement, it seems, for being accepted as fully a 'quotation'. The demand for OOQ remains substantial. It has also spawned numerous sister dictionaries, many themselves appearing in se-veral editions. Wc have The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations,.,. of Litl'rary Quotations, of Political QuotatiOIlS,. . of Biograpllieal Quot al hms,. _(If Mt'd ieal Quotatiolls, of

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119

A mericml Legal QUOtllt iOIlS, .... "f Sciellt ifte Qlwtat iOlls ..•. of PlTra"", Sayillg, alld QuottTfioll, of Tllematic Quotations, ... of Quotatiolls by SIII,)cct, ... of Modem Quotatioll, of TlOentieth-Cclltllry QIIlJtatiOlls, The COllcisc Olford Dictionary of Quotatioll. A Little Oxford Dictiollary of Quotatio"s has gone through

succcssiw editions. There have also been sevcral editions of Tile Oxford Dictiollary of Ellg/ish Proverbs, the first in 1936. There is an avid market, it s""ms, for quotation coll"ctions. The Oxforll Dictimwry ,'!QlwttTfiOIlS and Its sist"rs may be particularly wellknown. But there are, and have been, hundreds of othl'r such collections on th" mark"t. S<-arching the ilmilzon.co.uk website for 'dictionary of quotiltions' in mid-2006 drew over 500 entries, while a f"w years earlier an online s('arch of Bod:s ill Prillt und('r 'reference' and 'quotations' found 2,993 hits (Mulac 2002: 1870). There ar" hug" numbers of w('b col1('ctions ilnd milny live pages with 'quote of the wcck', 'quote of the dilY' or 'this month's quotes column'. Besidt'S th(' rnft of gen('ral collections from almost every leilding publisher, there an' volum"s of quotillions under such labels ns 'literary', 'modem'. 'military', 'humorous', 'sports'. 'latin', 'politiCilI', 'biographiCiLI', 'environmental', 'deathbed sayings', 'from th(' Vietnam war', 'fil m', 'ShnkL'Sp"nfe', and a multitud" of others. The Oxford Dicti<J/1llry of QuotMio/ls was not alone in IlIlother way, for it did not arise out of nothing. There was already an ample tradition of quotation collections behind it, nnd the Oxford 1941 volume was by no means the first in the field. In fact the first step in the planning of the Oxford dictionary was to look ill the existing collections. This \VilS not just to assess the competition but to scrutinise their characteristic features. Since the Oxford volume was to be a reference book not an anthology they would have to choose which of the current systems to adopt: whether ordered chronologically or alphabetically, for example. and if the lal1er whether by author. topic or wording, and how indexed. But they illso turned to existing collections for their contents. This was a key part of the compiling process. The first thing was 'to mark in the best existing Dictionaries of Quotations the certain material' (letter from R. W. Chapman 26 Nov. 1931, OUP archives). The method was to make a paper slip for each item they found and only after that to supplement these from the expert knowledge of members of the committee responSible for the collection. As onc of the compilers explained lat"r;

120

Why Do Wc Quote? We. first of all, worked through all existing dictionaries of quotations and deleted or took over such matter as we thought was necessary for a n<:w dictionary of quotation. Th<:n w<: work<:d through certain major works in commillee... all the main literary figures in both Britain and America... Then we also took on our shoulders working more thoroughly through o;rbin basic works or <:ertain authors in whom we had particular interest (G<:rard W. S. HopkillS StalcmL'Jl113 July 1954, OUI' archiv.,s).

Of the nine collections looked at closely the two that emerged as most centr,ll in the process were Bell/ram's Book of Quo/llliOlZS (1907-) and Hoyt's The eye/opedill of Prac/iCll/ Qzwl"liolls (18%-), the lalter a source particuliHly admired by several compilers. This reliance on earlier publications is clear in the archive records, ,md was indeed common pr
5.2, Forerwmers in the written Western tradition The O>.ford Dictionar,lf0fQlIotatiolls was thus just onc of a cluster of twentiethcentury volumes with a background in earlier compilations. It was at the same lime c.lfrying on a long WL'Stern heritage of quotation collections. These varied in many W
5. Harvesting Others' Words

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period when' quotations' was the common term to the earlier collections of 'adages'. 'maxims' or 'authorities'. 4 [n the early twentieth cl'ntury there were already many ...stablish...d popular coJl...ctions, well consulted by the ODQ compilers, among them, as already mentioned, Hoyt's The C.l/dopdia of Prm;tical QuotatimlS, an American volume in continued exist...nce since thl' late nineteenth century, and Bl'Ilham 'sBook ofQuotations, Proverbs alld Household Words first publish<.'d in 1907 and still going strong through the ftr;;t half of the twentieth century with its innumerable world-widl' editions cont.'ining thousands of quotations. ThNe was also the prominent American publication, BartlNt's Familiar Quotatioll.<: A Glllectiml of Passages, PhraseI', alld Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in A/lcient alld Modem Literature, also included in OOQ's search though probably not onc of their central sources. First privately published in 1855, by Bartlett's death in 1905 there h"d alreildy been nine successive editions with expanding coverage; it is still probably the market leader in th<.' US as OOQ is in Britilin. But beyond these there hild been a deluge ofother collections throughout the ninetC<'nth and earlier twentieth centuries, with such titles as - to pick just a few among multitudes - ROlltledge's Little Cyciopaedia of Familiar Qlwtatio/ls ill Verse aud PrOf'e, the first of whose two p,lrts was for quotations which' arc, almost without exception, in constant usage by every cultivated person' (London 19(9), ilnd Anna Ward's 700·page A DictionaryofQuotatiolls

from Ellglislr and Foreign Au/l1ors includi"g Tm/lslati(JIlS from Allcien/ S"UrCeS, published in London and Boston in 1906. Going back further. there were H. T. Riley's A Dictionary of La/ill al/d Grak Quotatio/ls, Proverbs, Maxims Iwd Mottos, Classical and Mediaeval (London 1872 and after), Bohn's Dictiollanf of Quotations from tire Ellg/ish Pods (London 1867 with many subscqul'llt editions and special American versions), J. Hain Friswell's Familiar Words. All Index 0fVe,-boYl/m or Quo/a/iOlI Handbook, London 1865, I. R. PfPrestonJ's Hal/dbwk of Famililw Quofatiolls from EllglisiJ Authors (London 1853), L.C Gent's The Book of Familiar Quotations; Beillg a Collectioll of Popular Extrm;ts 4 Many different terms forthese extracts from others· words have been usedoverthe years, sometimes differentiated but often in practice with much the same meaning_ 'Quotations' is common in kcent centuries, but frl'quently used terms HI earlier centuries, and to an extent still today, have included (to take just some English and Latin terms) 'prowrbs', 'apophthegms', 'adag"s'. 'gnomes', 'maxims', 'aphorisms', smlelltia.., 'sayings' (Latin dicta Jnd its derivatiws), 'precepts', 'authorities' {Latin auct"ritaltSj. Thl' coll"ctions focused on here W"rc mostly of relatively short sayings, though they shade at the other end of the rontinuum into anthologies of longer pieces.

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and Aphorisms Selectedfmm the Wilrb of the Best Auth"rs (London 1852), and many; many others. There wer(' also collections of quotations from writ('rs like Wordsworth ur Shakespeare, and special pUl}'use compilatiuns such as the 101 Quaint Quotations by Geo. Scarr Hall for his fellow lay preachers in 1900, one of the many sermon aids of uplifting quotations from classical and well-known authors. 5 Many nineteenth-n'ntury collections drew on sources in English. The tradition of commonplace books, starting mM)" centuries before as a system of (mainly) Latin excerpts from authors held to be authoritative or stylistically exemplary; had meantime been dl'veloping into personal notebooks for reflection and collection, increasingly in the vemacular. This was a continuing fe,ltUf(' of learning and private life in Victorian times and part of the background to the ninNcenth-century publicatiuns. Published collections however still kant towards the more literary, religious and in some cases legal sources. The preceding centuries had sel'n great emphaSis un the dassicallanguages - collections uf 5entClltiae in Latin, religious quotations. and a flood of volumes of extrilcts from classicill writers like Virgil or Cicero. Quotations from the Greek and Latin dilssics featured prominently, and eVl'n whl're these were in, or at least followed by, an English translation they still seemed to somehow constitute the bcdrock of quot,ltion. Despite some early multilingual collcctions, notably a remilrkable collection in 1596 by losephus Langius of L,ltin, Greek, and German equivalents, the legacy of classical learning had long held sway, with Latin for many centuries the learned international language and the natural funt, as it were, for quutation. But by the latc eighlL>('nth centu ry the educated TCilder was illso expected to have some interest in the offerings of th(' bUllS mots of Europe. By this stage therc were also plentiful collcctions of quutations translated not only from Latin and Grel'k but frum French, German, Spanish, ltaliilll, and occasionally languages from (urther ilfield. Thus, to take one example for f\1fther elaboration, 1797 saw the publiciltion in London of A Dictionary of Quotatiolls ill Most Frequent Use. Taken from t/le Greek, Lati", Frenc!r, Spallish, alld IIf/liIlll Languages; Tralls/atcd illto Ellg/ish WiIIl llIustmtions Historical and Idiomatic. In various editions and under several titles it was popular for many years in both Europe and America. The Londml Magazilw's reviewer ilsserted that 'no individuills

5 For more detailed accounts of quotation dictionaries in English ovcr the last two to threl' c"nturies s"" Hanch"r 2003, Knowl"s 2009, Regier 2010; un th" massive collecting activities in the complementary but partly overlapping fOnll of anthologi"S and miscdlanies, ~ Bcnedicll996; and, On prov"rbs, Obdkcvich 1987,

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hilw deserved so w('ll [as its editor] of tlu> literary world, since the tim(' of that walking dictionary of proverbs, the illustrious Sancho I'ilnza' (Anon 1826: 358) and ewn in the twentieth century thl' work was still enough known to be mention('d in the 194'] ODQ (ODQ1 1941: xi). The rnlJE'Ction was claimed to haw been put together for a private friend without ,lily view to publicMion. But ns often happens (at I"ast as compi!<'fs tell it) 'by nu're ..ctident' it caught the ('ye of an innu...ntial contact who urged its publicabon (Introduction 10 7th edition)., 11 took off and wns still in om' form or another in print some seventy years laler.

Fig. 5.2 rage frum the ht edition of f\-lacdonneh Dict"mu'!f O!QUOtllt;OlfS, london, 1797. (©The I3ritl~h library Board, '1602.I:c,8)

The firstl'dition did not indicat... the compiler's name. It soon l'm(,1"8I'd however that he was D.n'id Evans Mal:donnel, a London I,nvycr. In the

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successive London editions, 'Macdonnel's Dictionary of Quotations' started to ilppear on the spine ilnd his name on the title page. It W,lS a collection of short quotations in the originallilllguage followed immediately by an English translation and in many cases further comment (illustrated in Fig. 5.2). The Preface stated its ,1im disarmingly

If it h3d been the Aim of the Compiler to have made a large Book, his 1'3sk might easily have been effected - His Object was of a mOre limited Nalu~, He has for some Years looked mto every PublicatIOn politic31 or miscellaneous, and he trusts that his Diligence has b"l'n such
Leanllcss" of some of our earlier Writers, and were even deemed necessary in colloquial (ntercourse'. There was a long passage from an (unnamed) 'judicious Writer on the present state of Literature in England': One cause why the learned Languages have sun:, into Disrepute of late Years has been the Disusc of Quotations from them by our most esteemed authors. [n the time of James the First, and for a long: space afterwards, the Affectation of quoting from Latin and Creek Writers was carried to the most ridiculous Extremes, commonly one Part of a Sentence being in English, and the Remainder in Language few Readers could understand. - At present we are deviating to the opposite point, and the Classics arc supplanted by Quotations from our own Poets, or by French PhrasES (Macdonncll797: Preface).

5. Hawesting Others' Words lhe compiler ililTll'd 10 include quotiltiOns 'in most frequCTlt

lJS("

125

but eV('ll so

found hehad induded morcdnssical examples than thOS(' from 'th<>/jl1ing L'\Ilgu1lb"'" a di~l'arity which. he in~isted 'anSl..'S solely from Us..'lge, and not from thcOlOia> uf the Compiler. We adopt with some Degn.>(> of Vener,ltiOll those Axioms which the L'lpsc of A!;,'cs has consecrated'. His focus, as he explained lalcr, was quotations from the 'classic floweIS, rulk>d ilnd n.tained fn:m the pods of the Augustan age', but he had also borrowed some 'usdul precepts, and a few poetic blossoms, from our continC'lltal flC'ighOOllIS' (Macdonncl 1826 (9th edition): iv). The collection WilS inlL>ndL>d for 'that numerous class of society, who are acqllainlL>d only with their muther tongue' (1826: v). All in all, itS Macdunne1 WitS soon to conclude It wen:. to b:> wish<'c! that th<' V'iriters. who quote 13"b",ly fmm other tanguages, would furnish aTmnslahon, eithL'T marginally orolhemise. The practiceofQuotation is rnlheron the l~ase "ith !lOIl1e affuctcd Writers, who 5eem totake for granted that 311 th<'lr Readers arc dassically informed. To Ihoscwho arc notlO, this Collection of Commonplaces will, \h(:, Compiler trusts. be found useful (Mocdrnnell7% (2nd edition): Preface). MacdOlll1el'~

Diclionary found.1 ready readership. A considerably enlarged second edition followed within a }"~ar, and among other additions and corrections now included translations of 'Motto's of the severill Peers of the three Kingdoms ... the Tr.1nslations now current being frequentJy absurd in the extreme' (Preface 2nd edition: vii), together with translations of oxrtain 'lnw phrases'. A third edition followed in 1799 nnd by 18261he dictionary was in its ninth London edition, with il Spanish translnlion coming out in BnrceJona in 1836. As the compiler professed with due modesty in his 1826 ninth edition VVhen a work of this description, aiming only to be usdul, has passed in 3 short time through eight Editions, it may be supposed, without a slr3ined inference, to have gained the sanction ofthOSl' for whose Us" it was intended (MacdonneI1826: Introductioni. It nlso inspired the fonnnt and mucn of the content of several Inter publications. Onc WilS the nnonymou5 A New Dictionary of Ql/vlalhml' from tl,c Greek, Lat i 11, and M()dcr 11 ulIlgl/agcs Trallslated illlo EIIgl islllllld Occal'io/lally Accompanied wilh Illustrations, Historical, Poetical, and Anecdotical, published in London in 1858. There had been an evell more direct reincnrnation in 1856 when an enlarged version camcout in London under Ihe hand of a Dr. E. H. Michelsen with the new title of MlwueJ of Ql/olatimlS frrm tile Ancienl, Modern, and O,·i(lllal LalJg/jag~, indudillg Lm~ Phrases, Maximll, Prollerb~ and

Family Mohoc~; the litle page contimJ('d - in small print - 'forming a new nnd considerilbly enlnrged edition of Macdonnel's Dictionnry of Quotations'.

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Wily Do Wc Qllote?

Meantime the original had been having its success a{'IOSS the Atlantic, where in 1810 the fifth London edition hud also Ilppedred In Philadelphia under the slightly altered title of A Diet illllrlry uf Select Ilr.d Popular Quutat iUlls Wllich arc itl Dai(1/ Usc, Taken from the Latin, Frcnch, Creek, Spal/ish alld

Itll/ill" LlIllgulIgcs; Trrlns/atcd into Ellg/ish. with 1lI1.strr.tiolls, Hi"tflrira/ lI"d Idiomatic, This lViLS followed by at lenst six Aml'rican editions (not all under Macdonnel's name, see Fig. 5.3) and further reprints up to at least 1869. The Dicti"nllry {if QUlJllltilUl.< was clearly in dcmand.~

, U'<;"IlIlf''''"

.- ........

_--

••1'-...,.,...........

.....,..a-..

_

-- ....._-,--_ _-_ .. .. .........,---_ -._--= lfll...

._--_.....

Fig. ;;.3 Title page of American edition based on Macdonnel's Dictionary, Ph iladel phi" 1854.

6 TIleI\' wel\' LrI all nme London editions, sucresslwly revls~d and enlarged, wlth minor \'arialion around the original titJe 1797, J798, 1799, Hl03, 1809, J81], 1819, 1822, and 1826. A Spanish translation appeared in BMcelona in t836. The enlarged and l1'.vi~d ''1>l"5io" edited by E. H. Mkh"l5en appeared in 1858 as 11 Mall"al uf QuolMiolls, from 11", AJlcimt, Mod~1'1I a"d On"~"ful LlmSU~ll:es. The American publicallon, based on the fifth Lnndon edition, came nut in Philadelphia in lino under the titJe A Dieti,,"ary ofSdcct alld P"l'ular Qu"l~tir'lIs Which Arc ill Daily Use, Talm !n,m the Latill, FrCllch, Greek. S"al/i";, amt Italian Lallguag~ Tmllsl"ted i"t" EllS/ish, with II/"MrafiOlls, HistI'rieal a"d Idi"matic, with six American <'ditio!l5 by 1841 under the same or similar titles, and further reprints up to ,lt least 1869. A retrospective r<'print appeared in 1990,

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Per(acilc cHaium.proucrbia fcribcre cuiuis. Haud ricgo.Ced durum eft fCribEce ChiIfadas Qui mihi non crcdit,f.1ciatIicct ipfe peridum. Mox fuc.rit ftudIJs ~quior ilIe mcis. Fig. 5.4 Roundelof Erasrnu§ by HaM Holbein the Younger, in Ad
We c.m skip back some centuries fur a secund example - a munumental quotation collection in Latin thal rapidly attained besl seller status in the early sixteenth century, indeed proved 10 be onc of the first big-selling sensations of the Western printing press and ont' which continued to spread its influenc" for generations later. This was a massive compilation of short sayings by classical authof$ collected over many years by the humanist Renaissance scholar Erasmus Dcsiderius, also known as Erasmus of Rotterdam. Undt'r tht, title not of 'quotations' but, Ihis lime, of'rldages'. its final version contained over four thousand entries in Latin and Greek, supplemented by specially written cummentaries on t'ach. The focus was not vernacular languages butthl' ancient classical texis.' 7 The literature on Erasmus is huge; works particularly drawn on hHe include Barker 2001, Eden 2001, Gand 1893, l'hillips t%7, Rummel 1994, and th" multi-

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Do We Quote?

The Adages (Latin adagia) started as a I"<'lati vely short volu me, published in PMis in 1500 when Erasmus was in his thirties. It contained around 800 Greek and Latin quotations, each fullowed by a commentary. This was Adagiorum Co/ll'ctallell or, in its full title, A Collectio/l of Parot'lIIiae or Adages,

Old MId Most Celebrated, Made b.ll Des.lIderills Hrrasnlus Roterdamlls, a Work Botl! Nf"W alld WOllderfully Ukful for COl/frrring Beallt.ll and Distinctioll OIJ All

Kinds of Speech and Writing. Throughout his life Erasmus continued work on his collection, producing successlvcly reVIsed editions. By his death in 1536 it contained 4"151 entries and some vastly expanded commentaries. By then, though commonly referred to just as Adagia, its title had appropriately bcrome Chiliades AdagiorlHlJ - Thousands of Adages. Looking back some twenty-four years after his first version Erasmus described the initial motiviltion for his gre
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as it
i~

half don"

This adage signifies that it is in the tackling of a task that th" greatest difficulty lies. It is a half-line from Hesiod, quoted by Lucian in Hermof;'lllls. Aristotll' al'iO rd"rs to it in the P"litics, book 5, and Plato in the Lall]l;, book 6: 'for in proverbs it is said that th" beginning is half of a whole action, and everyone always praises a good beginning. But, as it seems to me, it is more than half, and no one has ever proised sufficiently a beginning wdl made'. Suidas quot"s from a certain Ma,inus: 'That was thc beginning for US, and not only the beginning, nor as the' proverb has it half of the whole, but the complete thing itself'. Aristotle in the Etllies, book 1: 'The beginning is said to be more than half of the whole'. Horaee in the f.pi.511"S: 'Who sets about hath half p"rformed his de"d; I Dare to be Wise'. Ausonius: 'Begin, for half th" deed is in beginning; IlJegin the other half. and you will finish'. Plutarch, in his essay 'On How to Study Poetry', quotes these verses from Sophocles: 'for SOmeone who begins well every dc.,d, I'Tis likely that's the way the end will be' (Adages 1 ii 39, CWE Vot 31: 181-2). Dii jr>cientrs Ildi"Villlt The gods help th05e who help themseh'es Varro in hisAgriwltllfe, book 1: 'And since, as they say, the gods help those who help themselves, I will invoke the gods first'. He indicates that divine hdp is commonly available, not to the idle, but to industriOUS men who try as hard as they can. To this I think we should refer those lines In Homer whieh hav" already become proverbial: 'Some things, Telemachus, will you devise f In your own heart; some too will hcawn suggest'. Ckero used Ihis in book 9 of his Letters to Att;clIs; 'You have to do everything unprepared. But ne\'ertheless "some you'll devise, some too will heaven sugge,'it'" (AdnXes 1 vi 17, CWE Vot 32: 15).

Some commentaries were much longer. 1\·105t monumental of all was his condemnation of war which became subsl
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Vegetius puts it this war: 'Do not put too much tnst in a novice who is eager for battle, for it is to the inexperienced that fighting is attractive'. From I'ind~r wc have: 'War is sweet for tho>\' who haV<; lIot tried it, but allyone who knows whM it is is horrified beyond rneasu~ if he meets it in his heart'. You can have no Idea of lhe dangers and evils of some aspects of human ~ffairs unlil you h~\'e tried lhem.,. (Adnges IV i 1, aYE Vu!. 35: 399-400).

The colk'ction grew gr'ldually. with ilJl apparently artless rather than systematic arrangement. Once described as 'onc of the world's biggest bedside books' (Phillips 1967: vii), it seems more a volume for browsing than a searchable reference work; unlike some other collections of the time the excerpts were not ordered by topic or alphabet. Later editions did include two indexes, one listing the adages alphabetically, the other by topics, but no indexing by keyword or detailed subject. Nor was there any particular system (or organising the items within the volumes. Similar sayings did sometimes come together but incongruous examples often followed closely on e,1ch other, Onc sequence (or cx,lmp1c runs: 'To avoid getting wet a man ran through the rain / Fell into a pit and was ne'er seen ag,1In', 'You use both jaws', 'A city-dweller has no righteous thoughts', 'As sordid as Patroc1us', 'Every master speaks to his slave in words of onc syllable', 'To wear a wig', and, of people who follow outdated customs, 'Full of grasshoppers' (Adages 111 iii ii9-95, CWE Vo!. 34: 312-]4). The Adages went through innumerable editions and attracted enonnous interest throughout Europe and beyond. Twenty-seven reprints of the fil'5t version appeared in Erasmus' lifetime, followed by successively revised and enlarged editions of the massive Chili
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in scholars' p~rsonallibrari('S:out of a hundred sixteenth-century Oxford wills, for example, half included books by Erasmus, most often tht' Adages. Thuugh Latin was then widely undt'rstood by readers across Eurupe, there were also many translations into the vernacular. Richard Taverner's (shortened) edition of Proverbe5 or Adagics gathered out of tire Chiliades of EmslIJlls was th~ first English translation, in 1539, followed in 1545 by an enlarged edition With /lewe addiciolls Il.~ wdl if Lat.lfll proverb",; as of E Ilgl.l/ssh". Even when not ~xplicitly dted, this was a quotation book with a hugely extensiVl' distribution and influ~nce in Europe's e.uly modern pt'riod. As Erasmus himself fureshadowed it, the Aldine printing house which published much of his work was 'building a library which knows no walls save those of the world itself' (commt'ntary on Fe:;tinrl ICllte ('Make haste slowly'), Adages [[ i 1, eWE Vo!. 33: 10). After the cigh\e('nth century the Adages itself was less prominent. But it continued to be the direct or indirect soufC('book for later collections. Versions are still in print, induding pafX'rback selections in English. Examples from the Adages appear frequently in contemporary web collections and s\lfface in sometimes uncxpt.'Cted places: along with Barbara Woodhouse .md Mnt dictionary of quotations ilbout cats and dogs (Nowlan and Nowl,m 2001). Eitherin their L..ltin original or, more commonly; a vernacular equivalent, th(' s,ayings he collected still regularly appeilf in both spet'Ch and writmg. 'No sooner said than done', 'Fortune favours the brilvc', 'Many a slip twixt the cup ,md the lip'. 'He blows his own trumpet', 'To look a gift horse in the mouth', 'Many hands make light wurk': these and many uthers all came in Erasrnus' Adages. ErilSmUS' Adages is a striking example of a monumental and groundbreaking collection. But though Erasmus was unquestionably a pioneer in taking readers back to the uriginal Latin and Gr('ek words, his collt>ct:ing activities, like those of others, did not come out of nothing. Many people were then making collections and it was common practice for students and scholars to gather notable short piect'S from tht~r reading into notebooks for later use. Nor was Erasmu5 the first Renaissancescholarto publish a collection of proverbs. The Italian Polydor Vcrgil had brought out his Liftle Book 11 Proverbs (Pro1J~7"biarJjllllibdllls) two )'\'ars before Erasmus' first collection and Htoo went through many editions. And this in turn had been pre<:eded by many earlier collections of proverbs and similar gnomic literature. Before that loo, and dnting b.1Ck to antiquity, ran a long tradition of compilations. During the centuries leading up to Erasmtls'life and before

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there had been vast numbers of lextuill collections. They took various fonns, but many were referred to as florilesia, collections of 'flowers' (il long-lasting imilgl' ilmong compilers). Thl'SI' largely focused on excerpts from Christian or Christian-approved sources. Thus the fifth century ilnd lilter SilW the drculation of many collections of religious pieces. Some were compilations of quotations iluthoriSl'd by the church and approved by church councils. Others were compiled by monks copying out pilSSilgl'S from their spi ritual readings for later personal reflection. Others again were teaching aids, aldememoirl'S or theological textbooks. The tradition of compiling and working with short excerpts was il long-continuing and vigorous one. It was from this background that our third main example comes. Two centuril's beforl' Erasmus, at the start of the fourteenth cenl1.1ry, a theologian known as Thomas of Ireland was creating one of these 'collections of flowers'. Born in Ireland, he had studied arts and theology at the Sorbonne in Paris and was using the library there to make his compilation. He published it in 1306 and called it MUllipulus flvrllm - a handful of flowers. s Thomas' Latin compilation was not only a V,lSt store of recognised excerpts from the authorities but an accessible reference work. 11 included thousands of quot
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and so would not be of much use 10 anyone else after me, I have concisely galhered them here, as inlo a she~f (mm'ip"'u;;) comprised of various ears, in alphabetical ordcr in the manner of concordances so thal they can thus be more "asily found by myself and by other simple people. And so, just as when the other harvesters came joyously carrying their sheaves, let me (along wilh Ihe poor widow) offer this, galhered behind the bach of Ihe doclors, 10 the treasury of the Lord. For sine,;> the sea of original books is like a great and wide ocean that """not be "xplored by iu.t =yone, il seemed 10 me more useful to have" kw sayings (dicta) of the doclors at hand rather than loo many (MallipulllS flor"m, Preface. trans!' Nighman 2OCl6). Despite these modest-sounding words it W 366 works used the equiv.,lent, in a modern estimate, of 365 pages of print at 300 words per page (Rouse and Rouse 1979: 117). Thomas aimed to make his collection readily search able and easy to use. His preface explained his system with admirable clarity: its topic headings, strict alphabetical ordering, manner of citing sources, and cross-referencing style. The excerpls were grouped under topic headings commonly used in sermons and lectures, 'with which a person can improve himself in every way'. There were in all 266 of these alphabetically ordered topics, each with its sequence of excerpts - "lUthoritative quotations (audoritates), which seem to speak very well on the subject, from saints and otherlearned men'. Under 'A' for example came passages on such topics as (to give just a selection under their Latin headings) abstinentia (35 quotations); amlJr (57); augc/us (26); a/lima (31); avaritra (61). Each passage was followed by its author's name. Thus the first and third of the 95 entries for amicitia (friendship) started, as often, with quot'ltions from Augustine: a FriendshIp I do not know whether friendships are 10 be considered Christian which arc more to be characterized by the popular proverb, 'Flattery makes fri"nds but truth makes enemies' than by the ecclesiastical one, 'Better Ihe wounds inflicted by a friend than the (raudulent kisse. of any enemy'. Augustine in a letter 10 Jerome

c Friendship Ik lik" a doctor; the doctur dO<'s notlov~ th" Sick unless h" halcs thc sickness - he attacks the (ever 10 sel the sick person free from it. Do not love the vices of your friends, if you love your friends. Augustine in a S"rmOn (Mallipulus fl
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Fig. S.S From ~n .. ~rly manusnipt of Thomas of 1",I~nd'i M.mjpulus {lam,". I'art of a page from a manu~cript which may have been an autograph oiThomas of Ireland. illustrating the layout and cro~&-rcferencmgsystem. The top of the image hah three lines from Ihe final (35Ih) enlry, a quotation atlribu1cd to ~ letter by Seneca, for Abstjucllcia. which is followed by a list of where (ubi) the reader can find nine other rele\'ant enlries under differenl topic headings as well as Ihree synonym topics (Ieiullimu. Sohrictlls and T"mperlmria) and onc antonym lopic (Cula). Thc lI1dividu~l cross-rdercnced 'luQlations ~re identificd by their alphabdic codcs: Curo c. r [i.c.lhc 51h and 17tl1 enlries under Cllr.! ~j"e corp""j. Cduiugium c (the Jrd under C'llli"gi"m 1. Cfllls"elJ<do c Ithc Jrd under Consuetudo I. and so on. These cross·rt'ferences arelht'n followed by the openi"!> ..nlries under the nexl tQpic heading, Abu"io (BnF MS lOll. 15985, fAr reproduced br pernll~slon of Bibliotheque national.. de france. image selected by C. Nighman) Org'lnising quotations under topic headings was a famili,lr system ilt thill period bUI had Ihe prOblem that iI passilge could be relevant fOr several topics - a difficulty for a collection thilt, li ke the Manipulu,; flIJW"', WilS intended nol to be reild through but 10 be se3rched. Thomas tackled this by his innovative cross-referl'ncing. He gave eilch quotiltion a letter code based on its order und(>r iI given topic head. As Thomas ~')(p[ained it for his readers

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Because a quotation that relates to one tepic may also apply to several other topics, in order to avoid repeating quotations under different topics, I ha,'e placed letters of the alphabd in the margin next to each quotation that generally correspond to the number of quotations in that topic, and where the number of letters does not suffice, they are combined (MauillUlus j1<1mm, Pl'dace, transl Nighman 20(6). Thus 'Avarice a' (Ilvaritia a) identified the first of the 61 entries under 'Avarice', followed by avtlrit;/! b, t1varitill c, moving into double letters like Ilvl1ritill lid and I1Vllritill bg when the end of the alphabC't was reached; similarly for uther tupic headings. At the cnd of each topic's entries came a list of cross references enabling the reader to trace relevant excerpts located under other topic heads, each identifiable by its unique alphabetic cude. Here was a remarkably effective tool fur ready lucatiun and cross rderence at a time when manuscript pages were unnumbered, and onc that continued in play for many centu ries afterwards. The MllIliplIllIs flonlm had far-reachin8 influence in late mediaeval Europe and after. Over 180 manuscript copies survive, mostly in repositories all over Europe with a few in North American collections. After the L'StabJishment of print it appeared in at least 50 editions: first in 1483, again about ten years later, reprinted at least twenty-five times in the sixteenth century, a dozen times in the seventeenth century, and further editions, if less frequently, up to the late ninC'teenth century. The bishop of Vannes prefaced a Paris edition (FloH'S doe/onlm) in 1887 as 'a signal service for preachers. who should quote from "the living sources of our Tradition"'. Like many such compilations, it went through many transformations and its successive editions saw both ndditions nnd subtractions. Parts were taken over 10 be incorporated into yet other collections, just as Thomas himself had drawn not only on his own reading but on existing compilations. [t was extensively used as a source for mediaeval pre,lchers. for theological study, pastoral work, and private devotional reading. It b<.'came n major source book (or litcrnture in the vernaculnr nnd I\Ins itself extensi vely mined for later compilations. As summed up by the tl\lO scholars who did so much to bring it to .1Itcntion The Mllu;pulus was of service to anyon~ whose profession involved composition - theological, literary, legal or other. Its innuence extended from 1306 to the end of the Middle Ages and beyond; from new order to old, from priest, canOn and friar to prelate and pope. It served thoolof;ians, anthologists, literary figures and pamphleteers, male and female. For

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virtually anyone whose career put a premium on a chOice of phrase, Ihe MllIripHIHs florWII was of ready use (Rouse and Rousc 1979: 229). But the longevity of both Thomas of Ireland's work and Erasmus' longrunningAdagt'S, amazing as they arc, was dwarfed by the remarkable diffusion and continuity of a short work known ,1S Cato's Di.~tkh~, a book happily going on its way alongside these other productions. Little T\'ad now, this collection of Latin moralistic epigrams became one of the best-known books in the Middle Ages and earlier, and remained in circulation for well owr a millennium. For much of thnt time it was a oc>st-seller in both manuscript and print.?

It apparently originated in late antiquity, possibly the third century AD, when the name of Cato became attached 10 the collection. It was a series of short pieces of moral advice in L,1tin verse. These were not attributed to earlier writers but presented as precepts by Cato himself, or at any rate credited to him. Some probably wenl back 10 Greek originals and many carried rt'miniscences of Latin poets such as Horace, Ovid, or Virgil, and al least one (2.3) was well-enough known to be quoted on an earl y gra vestone: Ccase dealh 10 fcar; nonc but a fool would choose Thro' fear of death the joys of life to lose. 'Calo's' collection came to be circulated as a store of memorable sayings in the same way as other compilations of quotation, had a huge circulation in many languages, and W.1S extenSively mined 11\ l.lter compilations of proverbs and moral maxims. The book opened with a short prologue. As so often in the tradition of wisdom literature, the precepts were notionally addressed to the author's son: When I lIo1ia.'d how very many go seriously wr->ng in their mlllU1er of living I concluded that I must apply a corrective I" their belief and lake counsel of lhe "xp<'ri<-'Tlee of mankind in order th,t Ihey may live most gloriously and attain honour, Now I will leach thee, deart'st son, in whal way thou mayest fashion a rule for thy life. Therefore, so read my precepts that thou map'st undersbnd them, for to rcad and not to undersland is eqUivalent 10 nol reading (Cato Djslichs, Prologue, transl. Chase 1922). 9 On Cato's VistjellS I have drawn especially on Chase 1922 and Duff and Duff 1935, also on Boas 1952, Hazc1ton 1957, 1960, Marehand and Irvin" 2006/2009, Taylor 1992, 1999,2004. The traditional attribulion 10 the earlier Roman statesman Marcius Portius Calo and the added name of Dionysius are rejected by modern scholars.

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Fifty-seven short one-Hnc proverbial maxims followed, with pieces of practical and ethical advice like 'Yield to him who is older', 'Guard well your uwn interests', 'Keep your temper', 'Don't drink too much', 'Remember a good turn'. The meat of the collection came in the following four books of (in all) 144 prL'<:epts in two-line c1assic.ll Latin verse: the 'distichs' (couplds) of the title. Here are the first ten from Book I: 1. If God a spirit is as poets sing. With mind kept pure make thou thy offerng. 2. Bc oft awake: from too much sleep abstain, For vice from sloth dolh "ver nurture gain, 3. Who rules his tongue doth highesl prai,es rl'ilp: Godlike is he who silence well doth keep. 4. Ne'"r with Ihyself perversely disagree; Who's out wilh self in peace with none will be. 5. If on men's lives and deeds Ihou look'sl, thou'lt see That from thos.c faults they blame, not on~ is free. 6. Shun thal which harm" (,'en tho Ihy lo\e i, caught; Before mere wealth should safdy first be >ought. 7. Be ever kind or stem to suit the time; The wise may change his practice without crime. S. Heed not ",hen of thy slave thy Wife complains, For whom her husband loves, she aye disdains. 9. When thou giy'st counscl cease not till the end; Though it unwelcome be, e'en to thy frien;\. 10. Try not with words the talker to outdo: On all is speech bestowed: good sensc on few (Cato Distidts, 1, 1-10, IransL Chase 1922) Slim as it was, the collection had a long life bdure it. It did not spring directly from the Christian tradition so, unlike Thomas of Ireland's huge compilation or Emsmus' learned collection, could not carry the authority uf excerpts from revered writers. Nor did it have an alphabetical ordering or other device for easy searching. Yet it was a best seller for centuries, adopted and adapted by the Christian church and distributed across diverse countries and languages. The central reason for this continuing popularity was its use in education.

It served both as 01 key text for the learning of Latin ,md as a source of moral wisdom - albeit of a fairly prilctical and worldly kind - for instructing the young. It was read in Roman primary schools in later antiquity, studied in scventh-ecntury monastery schools in Ireland, Md in both the British Isles

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and the Continent was on 5<:hool textbook lists in the eighth to eleventhcenturies. It was often bound together with other selected works in standard (if changing) combinatiuns for school use. and from the fifteenth century taken up by printing presses across the Western world. Prized both as moral guide and Latin primer it helped to shape many lives over the «,ntunL'S. More than just ,1 schoolbook, it was read and valued by adults too, quoted both by scholars and in popular songs, and the couplNs, often learned by heart dUring schooldays, left their trace through later years. Its verse style influenced later gnomic collL'Ctiuns, and for centuries it was alluded to by writer after writer as a taken-for-granted text. It was referred to by the French poN Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century and used by a long serk'S of famous authors over the centuries, from Alcuin and Gerald of St Gall to the English Alfred the Great who, it was said, drew on it for his prowrb collection. From the twelfth century on, as onc author puts it, 'references to Cato... are to be found lit(>ral1y (>vcrywhl're' (Hazleton 1957: 159). The fourteenth-century PiITS PlowmalJ quoted plentihllly from the Distichs, acknowledging the source. Chauc(>r was closely acquainted with the collection. His Callterbury Tales had many quotations - ,md parodies frum 'C,ltoun which that was su wys ,1 man', and he cuuld rdy un his audience's understanding when he characterised a carpenter as without the most elementary of learning since 'H.., knew no Catoun, for his wit was rude'. Catu was mentionl'd in the prulugue tu DOll Qllixote, and both mediaeval and later German and Spanish writers quoted him extensively. By the fjfteenth and sixteenth century parodies were circulating in the vernacular, as in the Se/wol" of SlovelJrie: or Calo TIlm'd Wrong Side Olllw~rd (t605). lis popularity was both demonstrated and enhanced by numerous commentaries and expOSitions in both mooi,leval and more recent time>, th..,msc!vL'S built on for further l'xpositiun ,md circulatiun. Its massive diffusion also took place through innumerable translations - into, among other languages, French, German, Spanish. Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo·Norman, Bohemian, Greek and Icel<mdic. Four English editions of a version translated from the French were printed by William Caxton within sevcn years, the first in 14n; he dedicated it 'vnto the noble auncymt and renummed cyte lcityl o( London in Englond', directing it to the children o( London merchants, as 'the best book to be taught to young children in school, and also to the people of every age it is full convenient if it be well understandcd'. Erasmus quoted the book and brought Ollt a version, itself Widely translated and

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CA TO~NI'S DISTICHA MORALIA EX CASTIGATIONE D. ERASMIROTERODAMI unacum annotatiom.b9 &' fl:hoIijs Richatdi Tauemeri angli.co fdiotnate confcriptis tn

afumAnglica:i""

..

uentutis, . '.'

LONDINI, I!Itltdibas Ricltatdl Taaemer. Aaao. M.D.XL, Cum priUilegio adimprila_

dumfolum.

-

Fig. 5.6 Richard Taverner's edition of Calo's Disticlu with Erasmtls' (ommenlary; London, 1540. (©Th~ British Libmry lklad., 1460.a.32)

distribut..d in multipl"l'ditiollS, uft..n bound tog..ther with uther coll..ctions of wise sayings (Fig. 5.6 shows the title p,lge of a London edition published in 1540). Another version, edited by Calvin's teacher Maturinus Corderius, was said to have gone through a hundred printings. In one fonn or another the book long continued in circulation. The Latin text was printed in 1577 as part of the Jesuits' educational programme in Mexico. It was used in English classrooms in the tim.. of Milton and Oliver Cromwell, pwscrib..d by sixteenth and scventCt'nth century statule for public schools lih· Etun and Harrow, and published with Erasmus' commentary in London in 1760 as Cato's Distich~ de nwriblls improved, ill a lIIore complete atld useflll method

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1111111 filly yet e.llflllt. .. For tll.. use uf schOl/ls. In both continental Europe and

America its use in schools continued wdl into thl' eighte('nth c('ntury in both Latin and wrnacular. [n 1735 Benjamin Franklin published a nl·\Vly translated version in Philadelphia as Cato's Moral

Distick~ ElIgli.~h~d

ill

Co«pJcts -th(' first Latin classic to be translated and printed in the British colunies of North America. He saw it as of good moral use for both adults and children -'Very proper to be Put in the Handsof Young Persons' - and was confident that it would be in demand. The M~nuscripl copy of this Tr~nslation of Cat,,·s M"rat Disficlts happened into my Hands same lime since, and ~ing my sdf extremely pleased with it, I thought it might be no less acceptable to th(' I'ublick ... In my Opinion it is no unfit or unprofitable Entertainment for those of riper Years. For certainly, such excellent Precepts of Mor~lity, contain'd in such short and easily-remember'd Sentences, may to Youth particularly be very serviceable in the Conduct of Life, since there c~n sc~rce happen any Affair of Importance to us, in which we may need Advice, but one Or mare of these Distichs suiled to th" Occasion, will s"asunably ocCur to the Memory; if the Book has been read and studied with a proper Care and Attention ... I confess, I have so great Confidence in the common Virtue and Good Sense of the People of this and the neighbouring l'rovin~es, that I expe~t to sell a very good Impression (Fr~nklin 1735: iii-iv). Though Cato's !l'xt is no lunger in print and is bynow largely forgot!l'n, it is gaining new life through circulation on the web and occasional surfacing in college courses. It even provided the' quote for the day' (17th June) on a

2009 website, in its translation as: On;,ad not the day that endeth alllifc's ills; For fear of death all joy m living kills,l. A collectinn of such longeVity surely tells U3 something about the European devotion to written repositories of verbal sayings. Over the centuries there have indeed been mnny grcnt literary works and collections but there cnn have been few which directly touched so many lives over a millennium or more as this modest compilation of maxims. Such ex,lmples hnve only touched the surfacc. There were mnny collections besides those already mentioned, nmong them the Book of

Hours (the collection of psalms and biblical quotations which was often a 10 heHan.netlblogJ2009!06/17/quote-for-toda y/quote-for-the-d~y-dionysius-<:atoin-distichsl (26 Nov. 2009).

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household's sole book in the late Middle Ages); Plutarch's apothegms; the collected sayings of illustrious figures like Socrates, Diogenes or Alexander the Cfl'at (attributed to them at any rate); sayings of the desert fathers; and the inter-connected succession of proverb collections. A long tradition unquestionably underpins the quotation collections of today.

5.3. Where did they come from? These ,md other collections were constructed by their compileT5 from many, and varied, sources, The verbal clusters selected for record could be shorter or longer (sometimes just a single phrase or line); by unknown or by named (or misnamed) authors; and in a variety of familiar or unfamiliar languages. Depending on date or context they could be drawn from everyday or rhetorical speech, or - more often - from written sources: religiOUS, literary, philosophical and much else, and presented under a variety of terms. Common at all periods, it seems, was some version of 'sayings' (Latin dicta) but with changing targets and connotations over the centuries. The 'authorities' of ellrly collections, whether Christian or from the ancient clllssical world, gradullJ1y gave way or were combined with less normative terms like 'maxims', 'commonplaces' (with its changing meanings), 'proverbs', 'adages', the overarching term 'quotations' or, most recently, 'catchphrases', 'songs' and 'slogans'. The sdections were also of course bound into that same question as in the previous chapter. of whose voices llnd whllt kind of excerpts counted llS suitllble for highlighting, repellting llnd - III Ihe present context - storing for furlhH fl'fcrence. Attitudes to the collecting of others' words have in pMt paralleled the changing uses of quote marks, as they gradually moved from focusing primarily on classic,]I, literary or lluthoritative Christian sources 10 sayings from the near-present, from thl' 'common' man, and from spoken not just written 11lngllilge. By the nineteenth century newspapers as well as literary ,1nd biblical sources were being drllwn on and, though the idea of 'best authors' still prevailed, nineteenth- and, especially; twentiethcentury quotation collections 11lid particular stress on 'familiar', 'popular', or 'in most frequent' or 'common' use. Not thllt that ,lVoided the issue of whusr definition of 'familiar' counted and who controlled the selection. [n the sixteenth century Erasmus had presented his adages as 'frequently on people's lips' while looking to the llncient dllssic writers for his selection

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and despising the verbalisation of the common people, while the 'literary reader' of the 1941 Oxford Dictionary of QU(ltatiml~ might scarcely fit the common expectations of today. But the trawl has now cl'rtainly spread to include wording from film, broadcast and 'non-traditional' media, extending beyond the traditional literary canon of just one country. Recent collections boast of being up to the minute and pride themsdws on including 'new', 'modem' and 'topical' qUOIL'S. But at same tim(' another striking feature of recent colk>ctions - even now - is a continuing interest in spanning the age~. Contemporary blurbs swim with phrases like 'from Cleopatra to J. K. Rowling, and the battle of Marathon 10 Ihe Hutton inquiry', 'from the ancients of East and West to the global village of the twenty-first century', 'from Ciccro to Ihe Simpsons'. The sources come from p,lsl as well as present and, as in earlier collections, there remains a focus on Ihe wealth and wisdom of past times. Ev('n now allusions 10 the classical world carry surprising resonance and many collections still contain quotations from Lalin or Grel'k and the highart literary canon from eMBer centuries, and refer in their blurbs 10 Ihe authors of antiquity. Looking to Ihe past not just the present almost se('ms a requirement for what it is 10 be a colk'ction of quotations. This is reinforced by th(' remiHkable longevity of many k('y collections and their impact both across vast geographic"l iUeas and on successiw generations. In their prL>senc(' and trilvels they transmit, "nd embody, voices from beyond the present. Tile Dictes Iwd Sayings of the PlliItJsop/,ers published by William c.'xton in 1477 is an eXilmple of one such compilation (Fig. 5.7). That il should be the first book to be printed with a date in England evidences the interest in such collC'Ctions while its curious history illustrMes wdl both their long-liwd potential ilnd the complex and far-reaching pathways they sometimes followed. The Arabic original of this work had been compiled in Cairo near the star! of the second millennium by the Syrian Mubashshir ibn Fatik as Mu/,tar-al-Hikam ('Wise sayings'). It appearL.<J in 1053 with its hundreds of quotations from Jewish, Arabic and Greek sources. Two centuries later it was circulating in Spanish Iranslation as BOCf/dos de Om ('Gold sayings'). It was soon translated further into Latin, C\lt down to just the philosophers' sayings, and circulated widely in Europe under such tilk's as Libcr pllilosop/lOrum mttralilHll or Placita plrilosophorum. In Ihe 1,1IC fourteenth ('{'nlury it appe.ued in French as Les dits des philosophes. Both Latin and French versions bC'Came popular in England and at least four

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Fig. 5.7 The Djct~~ ,. .,d 5ayj"gs oft"~ Phj/osop""rs printed by William Cadon -14n.

The earliest dated book to be printed in England. This shows the start of the main text EngliSh translations weJ"(' in circulation in the mid to late fifteenth century, wilh many changes and errors accumulated over the centuries. Caxton's 1477 publication was a translation from the French version into English by the king's brother-in-law Earl Rivers who paid Caxton to print and edit it." In every period from which wc have records, il seems, theJ"(' was a habit of compiling and circulating collections of verbal excerpts. Some bcrame amaZingly long-lasting, firmly estilblished and widely distributed, not seldom best sellers of their time. The Oxford Dictionary of QUolatmm; has been going strong for over sixty years, Bilrtlett's Familiar QlIolaliOIl~ for iI century ilnd a half. Macdonnel's collection spilnned some seventy years, there arc still new editions and translations of Erasmus' Adages after 500 years, and editions of TIlomas of Ireland's Mauipullls jlorum appeared from the early fourteenth to the latc nineteenth century. More astounding still was the active use and multiple appearances and transformations of Catl/'s Dislicll~ over a millennium and.1 half. And these were only a few among a host of other long-Lived collections that continued over the ages either as independent collections in thei r own right or-equaJlysignificant - through their re-use and repackaging by others. 11 On thiS (arguably controversial) work See Raybould 2006, Jayne 1995: 37ff.

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For amidst all the variety and change in quotations collections a further feature to notice is their continuity. This was not just the fact, remarkable in itself, of the continuing pupularity uf the collecting genre in general and uf <-""{'rtain individual collections in particular, but thl' degr('(' of concordance in their contents. There were many chains of connection between them. This was partly thruugh the inclusiun of the Silffie or similar items over the centuries. What in one sense m
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instances like 'Carrying coals to Newcastle', ' ... pine to Scandinavia' or' ... beer to Munich'. Or take 'Write in water', cited by Erasmus from classical sources, prevalent in Elizabethan times, reappearing in cuuntless other collections, and still current today; in the Oxford Dictiul1llry of QlwfatiulIS it comes under Keats's name in the fuller form 'Here lies onc whose name was writ in wilter'.!2 The Greek author He.>iod's 'Well begun is hillf done' Cilme in Erasmus' collL'Ction, re-ilppeared, v.lfiously phrased, in Latin and English in Macdonnel's matic mining of earlier collections was far from alone. This was cummon practice. Friswdl's 1865 Lundun-based quutatiun hilndbook, Familiar W,'rd..., for example, appropriated much of its contents from Bartlett's Familiar QrlutatiollS, while Bart1ctt's collection in its turn hild drawn directly on ]silbel!a Preston's halldbook of Familiar Quutatiolls from E/lglish AlIthars published in London in 1853, one reason no doubt for the bias towards English authors in Bartlett's early editions (Hancher 20(3). Certainly compilers also utilised their own memorised recollections and reading - some more, some less - but amidst the many collections there was undoubtedly extensive transmission from one to another. The vicissitudes of Milcdonnel's quotatiun dictionaries were not unusuill, where what began as one collection became transformed into subsequent ones, sometimes with substantial overlap in presentation or content but under differing titles and attributed editors. 12 Sce Doyl!' 2004 for

~

fuller

~ccounl.

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In asimilar way huge numbersof collections, pastiches and commonplace books were based on Erasmus' Adagrs. Its popul'lrity in multiple English translations and transformatiuns fed directly into proverb cullectiuns and played a part in establishing many English proverbs. Erasmus in his turn, while certainly steeped in the original Greek and Latin texts and taking much direct frum there, himself used previous compi1<1tions such as the massive earlier compilations of Diogenianus, Zenobius, Stobileus, Suidas and the 111ld fifteenth-century collection of sCll/entillC by Michael Apostolius. His 'Wl'Il begun is half done', to recur to that example, was already popular in antiquity ilnd had appeared in the earlier collections of Diogenianus and Suidas. And then there was the vast spread of mediaeval jlorilrgil1. Thomas of Ireland's Ml1llipullls jlm'lIm drew in part on original works he consulted in the Sorbonne library in the early fourteenth century, but in addition built on existing compilations, notably the great Cistercian jlorilegil1 of the previous century. Two of these, Flures paradysi and the Likr I'Xcrpliolll4ll1 ex libris vigiuli trimll auctor/ml, were large indexed collections of patristic and ,lncient authorities, and major sources for Thomas' work, thL'ffisclves with roots in yet earlier collections. Through the fullowing centuriLos Thomas' compendium was in its turn used repeatedly in the compilation of other collections of extracts. Cato's Di.d the b.lsis fur collections of proverbs, and appeared in various b'Uises in European languagl'S, including numerous translations and milnipulations in English. Togcther with Erasmus' collections, they were an imlX'rtant source of inspiration for John HeY"vood's immcnsl'ly influ'-'ntial A Dialogue COIl/airlillg IIU' Numkr ill Effect of All the Provt.7bs in Illc Ellgli.
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up in the recurrent compilations that w"r" apparently such a widt'Spread institution in ewry period. For their compilers, for their readcrs and for Ihose for whum thest, wurds uf uther.; came through mure indirect channels, they stnlctUfed the continuity and appreciation of select it"ms of verbal textuality. Reinforced in some Cit>CS by formal or informal schooling. th..>se were the words aceep"-'d 10 a greater or lesser d.." gf'-'t' as ofspecial w..>ight and meaning. Quotations in short have been harvested from many fields. But one major sourc" was the persIsting presenc" of the many organised memory stores already in onc way or another to hand for further transmission.

5.4. Why collect quotations? As to why pcopleshould so often harvest and slore the words of 0 thers, one part of the answer must surely lie simply in the force attached to a long-established convention. Collections of excerpts from others' words have bct'n an accepted genre for millennia, exerting an influence on successive generations year after year after year, and it takt'S no great originality to follow in the habit. Such habits arc nol just a thing of the Westt'm written tradition but apparently long·practised throughout the world. In all areas and eras, it seems, wc encounter the impulse to mark out distinctive words of others' as of speCial import, and harvest them into verbal stores. Nor has such collecting been a minor activity for the numbt'rs in which such excerpts were gathered have often been vast. A myriad sayings and extracts have been gathered up and circulated in their hundreds and thousands in successive collections over the centuries and throughuut the glube. Collecting quot
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Why Do Wc Quote!

Fig. 5.8 From the world's e"rliesll?roverb collection: inscribed clay t"blet from .1I1Clent Sumer. (Courtesy of the Penn MuS<'um, obJect: B6139) The pleasure of:l

dau~hter-in-law is

anl:;er.

A He multiplies seven tunes.

He who shaves his head gets more hair And he whocolleclsthe barley gets more and more grain.

The Sumerian coJlE'Ction in all comprised many hundreds of such items, some of them ill turn passing on into liller middle Eastern proverb trilditionS.I~

The gathering together of selected verbal excerpts has long been a characteristic of writing. Thl're were milny collections in l'nrly Chi nil, ilmollg them the mOllUmt'ntal Confuciim and Taoist corpora; the sayings attributed to Confucius for eXilmple hnvc circulilted in their thousands not just in 14 This summary is based on the authoritative "eeount in Aliter 1997.

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149

Chin
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and of praiseworthy opinions as well as exemplary style whose words were copied into the commonplace books of early modem Europe. Other colk>ctions were hdd tu transmit certain moral and spiritual standards, as with Cato's Distich~ or the many collections that presented the virtues and vices under specific.llly defined headings. So too with compilations of key sayings for political or religiuus activists illld disciples, whdher from sacred scriptures or the sayings of Mao. Even in overtly more dispassionate selections, lmphdt and soml.'hmes unconscious ev~lualions often underlay th.. colk'Ctiuns, whether in assumptions about th.. 'cultivated person' - onc fomUllation in 1910 - or the 1941 Otjord Dictionary of Quotations' hope that it would 'star! people reading the poets' (ODQI xii). What was classed as 'familiar' dep..nd..d on th.. compiler's outlook. Erasmus looked to I..amed classical sources while in Bartlen's early editiuns the English-dominated 'fami1iur quotations' drawn from the sea of literature Cilme from a source wher<' 'most of the sea was mixed with the ThamL'S estuary' (Hancher 2003: 52). It carried differing messages if the selt'ction WilS from, say; ancient c1assic,ll authors; Christian or other religious writers; the traditional English or European literary c,mon; some admired individual; proverbial phrasL"S in current circulation; ur pupular sayings from reCl.'nt politic.ll rallies or mass media progr,unml'S. Amidst the many variations some themes recur. Time and again over the years the words in quotations cullections have bL"t'n repeilted as ethicill injunctions, as gems of beauty or wisdom, inspirational insights, points for meditation. They have been used as texts for learning, models for composition, manuals fur speakers and writers, cures for incorl"L'C! renderings, exemplification of great authors, weapons in political or relil,>ious struggle, choiet' flowers from the past. Often the moti vation has been to make the wisdom of the anciL'nts - the mure, or !Loss, ancient that is - acctossible to contemporary readers. They have also acted as important tools for further literary; theological and intclkctual creation. The compilations might indeed have been typically associated with the powerful and erudite but their influences and USt'S spread wider, embcclded in the practices of knowledge, learning and literary art throughout the agL"S. Not themselves great literary works, and often bypassed in histories of literature, they )ft't underpinned the creative endeavours of others and flowed both into and out of the literary imagination, imbUing it with the radiance of repeated and known quotations and allusions. There have thus bt'l..'n many and varied pUrpOSlOS and uses for collecting quotations, changing and overlapping even in the case o( anyone collection

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and its successiv.. transformations. But at th.. same time there is still a sense in which such collections have not needed any enundated explanation. The genre, to repent, has long been pmt of L'Stablished practice and in dL'IllilIld, with no cnIJ to justify its supply. These stores of others' sayings provided n proven mechanism of corralling words into authorised pens of knowledge and of trndition, nnd of presl'rving - .md controlling - them as a rL'SOurce in the present. Human beings, or some of them anyway, apparently love collecting things and bringing them under control. It is noteworthy thilt verbal chunks have taken such a prominent place in this, attesting to the weight laid in human culture on the power and art of words "nd their controlled repetition. Vast resources have been expended to gather up, preserve, store, distribute, mannge, propagate and market the selected words of others. As throughout history, some pL'Ople h"ve had less access or control over these valuables thnn have others and not all may have shared the presuppOSitions of the colledors or trnnsmilters. But unlike some other valued resources these stores of riches have not become used up over timc, their glow sometimes the more burnished in th..ir use and rc-use OVt'f the y..ars. The collections make up n substnntive achiev..ment of human culturl' in thci r own right, an institutionillised way of treating others' words long established in humilIl history. Here thcn is ilnother way of demarcating othL'rs' words that complements the quotation markers considered in the previous chapter. To il degree it rests on a different prinCiple, singling out chunks of words with abrupt edges nnd gnthering them explicitly; a..~ others' words, into an organised store for conservation. The two strategies MC worth distinguishing. but do not operate separate!y. They merge into each other in thcir operation, from the m'lrginal rdenmces of earlier yenrs to Ih.. indented and blocked-out quotations in modern expositions and academic texts (some of which read like quotation-compilations with interludes). Most notably they intertwine in their ch.mging ilssessments of whose words are to be privileged. With illlthe diversities of detail, the extent and ubiqUity of this mode of treilting quotations -capturing them into organised repositories - is indeed ilstonishing. Such colll'CIions are, it is true, Pilrt of the moderatl'ly learned written traditions of our history rilther than u>ed by or (even now) accessible or of interest to everyone. a point that comes through both in the historical examples and in the comments of the contemporary British observt'rs. Not everyone, dearl y, hils engilged personillly in lengthy systematic collecting;

nor, even in contexts of high literacy and mass print, does everyone possess a colk>ction or, where they do, make much use of it. But such collections are remarkable in their numbers and distributiun nevertheless. And both their direct usage and the ripples from their effects have a broad spread, going far more widely than just the highly educated or the professional scholars. They fix and make visible the links to earlier writers and voices from the past. GathNing togNher quutatiuns is an extraordin
6. Quotation in Sight and Sound

I think when I quole (1 never thought of ,his before) I would use a tone of voice that pub quotation marks ar;mnd the quote. So. pause and emphasise the saying, thcn pause again at th~ cnd before returning to your own speech (Teaching Assistant in her 305. from Northamptonshire)' The emblem lis] a sweet and moral! symbol which consists of pictures and words, by which some weighty scnhmce is declared (Henri Eti<mne 16th-cmluTy printer)' Is singing quoting? (75 year.old former social worker from West Yorkshire)'

Over many cenluries, then, quoting and quotations have flourished in

written form, defined and authorised in planned compilations or through their dcmarclllion by visually shown symbols. Writing has indubitably provided a rkh framework in which hum~ns have invoked and staged the words of others. But the examples in the opening chapters indicate the need to look further. Spoke" not just wrillen quotation figured 'lmong the contempor
2 Quoted in Raybould 2009, 3 MOjN1592.

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Why Do Wc Quote?

6.1. Quoting and writing - inseparable twins? We can start with oral quotation. In one way there is no doubt about its significance. It pervades spoken language and long antedates as well as parallds quoting in written form. It was clear from the British observers' reports in Chapters 2 and 3 that they were fully 'lcquainted with oral as well as written quotations: family sayings, proverbs, reported dialogues, remembered snatches of poetry. catchphrllses. contemporary "luips, .lnd the presentation of well-known words in formal speeches. Such fonns are surely familiar to us all. But therl' is a difficulty. For at the SillTle time as providing prolific examples of spoken quotation, ther<' was a cNtain unease among some of these observers at the thought of quotation divoffed from writing. Quotation 'proper' came in the domain of writing and the traditional literary canon. And unwritten "luOles, plentiful as they were, seemed of lower status than those more thoroughl y tied into the world on paper. Even the former social worker who provided a stream of vocalised as well as written examples still wondered 'Is singing "luoting?' Given the ubiquity of spoken quotation this hint of uncertainty may seem puzzling. But it has a background: a widely held, if not always fully conscious, paradigm of writing as the context for quoting. It is worth pausing to unpick this a little further. Our established education system is onc element in the mix. We are taught Ihe formalities of quoting al school as a learned and somewhat laborious activity. We work at th", intricacies of inverted commas and layout, the (perceived) distinction between direct and indirect spl'ech, and the prescrib"d conventions for indicating others' voices. Later ther" is the requirement to introduce prominently signalled quotations in exact and care-fully referenced form into essays and reports: often enough an arduous, eVl'n self·dl'fl'nsi ve, p ractic" wh"r" fail u r" to observe the rigorousl y pol iced rules can risk heavy penalties. Quotation here is a formalised and deliberate maller, with writing as its taken-for-granted setting. The conventions for spoken quoting, by contrast, are informally Il'amed l'Ind operl'lte largely below conscious l'Iwareness. As came out well in the British observers' experience, the oral conventions, though well-recognised in practice, Me normally little thought about, very different from the explicitly formull'lted rules for written quoting. It is scarcely surprising Ihat writing comes more re1'ldily into view 1'IS file vehicle for quotation.

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An emphasis on written fonns is also strongly embedded in the practices of the world of learning. both today and in the past. The celebration of quotation has after all been a nolilbll' feature in thl' schooled tradition, itself closely associated with the written word, and the ability to deploy the conventional signals for quotation has been one mark of an educated person. Throughout many Cl'nturil>S and for many people, the visibly written word hils retilined iI powerful position, with quoting and quot
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Why

Do Wc Quote?

from a primitive language to onc having quotations' (2006: 470). From this vil'wpoint the c,1pacity to manipulate the words of others is a crucial step in the prugress towards full and complex language. A related approach brings in quoting in a different way. By now arguably dated in its extreme form but still influential, this envisages early and primitive humans as 'participatory': intimatdy entwined with the world around them and lacking the detachment that makes quoting pOSSible. The development of civilisation thus involved a movement from the stage of communal orality, stl'Cped in emotion and tradition, to that of modernity - of literacy, individuality, rationality and the objectivity and decontextualisation that underpins modern science. Thus starting from the premise of 'Writing as a fonn of quotation' Olson and K,1mawar hold that 'Learning to manage quotation and thus the rt'lation between use and mention ... were historical achievements as well as developmental ones' (Olson and Kamawar 2002: 196, italics in original). The self-awareness made possible through writing allowed the separation of concepg from emotive participation. laying them out for scrutiny on a page. On p,1rtly parallel lines is the view thnt human language only gradually develuped the capacity to cupe with quotation in the sense of thl' precise reporting of direct speech and that verbatim memorising and exact repetition arc uncharacteristic, even impossible, in oral settings. As Jack Goody has it, 'Even the most standardised segments of ural sequences never become so standardised, so formulaic, as the products of written man. Reproduction is rarely if ever verb,1tim' (Goody 1977: 118). A further impl ication sometimes en tNs in: thnt the objecli vity and precision of 'li terate civilisation' is impossible in oral settings. This recalls the once fashionable paradigm of a radical divide between oral and literate cultures, where the former had little ur no Cilpilcity to achieve the kind of detachment mild!' possible by texll.lal quotation. 'An oral culture has no texts', writes Ong, and their way of knowing is 'empathetic and p,lrticipatory rather than objl'CIively distanced' (1982: 33,45). The form of writing to the fore in such accounts is alphabetic Western literacy.longsccn as both tool and token ofthe high dl'Stinyofthe modernising West. This writing system, l'Specially that in print, led to the possibility of nbstract thinking. An early twentieth-eentury book on punctu permanent and far-reaching than spCl.'ch' as far surpassing his predecessors by it degree of self consciousness - '~ power of constructing

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conditions other than those immediately present'. Until the development of punctuation however this was still an early stage for as yet his powers of abstraction were but weakly alive: he was still unable adC<juatdy to put himself in the position of his reader.... We, On the other hand, are in possession of 1'1 highly complex instrument of expression, an instrument that has been developed and refined to meet the needs as well of the reader as of the writer (Husband and Husband 1905: ]-2). From this viewpoint the gradual standardis,ltion imd riltionalisation of visible punctuation symbols - quote marks notilbly among them - enabled the full development of discriminilting discourse ilnd thought. More rc<:ent ilnalyses too have posited Western-style punctuation ilS a necessary pMt of modernisation, with its ability to separate out the words of others within a logical system th.lt facilitates .1bstrm:tion and precision.' Others would be scepticill about simplistic teleological or greilt-divide stories but still set' quoting as playing a key role in the development of humankind, linked to writing and, in turn, to the alt.linment of objecti vity, ilbstrilction and Western science. For many years now a variety of scholars haw been debating the possible cognitive effects of writing. As Bruce Homer posits, literacy 'enables language to become an object of thought that can be analysed, dissc<:ted, and manipulated' (Homer 2009: 497) and (in a similar view) 'allows discourse to achieve the explicitness and formality distinctive of modern science and the distinctive mode of thought that it entilils' (Olson and Kamawar 2002: 196). The direct target here is Ilot ncressarily quoting as such but literacy's effect in bringing awareness of linguistic elements: the consdousness of verbal fonn that enables people 'to think about 11lnguage in a new, more abstract ilnd decontextuillised way, both about the world and about emotional states' (Olson 1996: 150). But this metalinguistic consciousness spills into the more general recognition of specific phrases as in some way set apart, one typical feilture of quoting. The use of othl'fS' words and the capacity to stand back and SL>e them as somehow detached from the present situation - and from oneself - is indeed a key instance of the power of languilge to renc<:t on itself. In such theorit's, the ability to quote thus emergL'S as closely entwined with literacy in the se<Juential stages of both human history and individual development. These varied but partly interrelated theories reinforce the feeling that the nonnal and most obvious setting for propl'r quotation must be writing. 4 Fm example Twine 1991 On the 'modernisation' of the Japanese script.

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Why Do Wc Quote?

So it is worth emphilsising that such views, alleilst in their mon' extreme forms, arc now widely challenged as both over-gcncralisN Md limited, imbued with thilt ethnocentric myth uf the West illld its mudemity which uses Enlightenment rhetoric ilS silnction for its mission ilt the expense of the denigrated non-Western (and su pposedly non-quoting) others. Generalising evolutionJry theories ilbout language or thought that eventuilte in the triumph of the modem West nowadilYs carry less credence, ilS illso du both the limited focus on alphnbetic writing nnd the once-fashionable wholesale contrasts betw(!l'n 'primitiVl" ilnd 'civilised' or 'oral' and 'literilte'. And yet the effed of these ilppronches to an extent lingers on, outside as well as within ac,ldeme, carrying resonnnt if not nhvays fully conscious owrtones. There is il complex background then to the speri'll status thilt for a mix of reasons has b€Cn ilccorded tu writing itS the medium for representing others' words and voices. This is without doubt onc thre,ld in the complex ways that quoting is perC<'ived Md experiL'Ilced in the hew Md now of todny. But it should not blind us tu the additiullill- .1Ild equally 'nunnal' - contexts for deploying and recognising the words nnd voices of others. The visual marks of writing experienced through the medium of sight are indeed one notable way of signalling others' words and sorting thl'm as ap.lrt from onl'sdf - but only onc. Nor even here is it iust a miltter of script on pnper or of modern print, for there arc many formats for visibly fixed words ilnd other writingsystems besidL'S thilt of the [{omiln illphilbet. And beyond this ilre the milny expected ilnd learned devices in different cultures, Sl'ttings and genres which signal quotation without recourse to 'the written word' at all, far less just tu the written wurds as conceived in classic Enlightenment ideulogiL"S uf language and its relation to alphabetic Writing! An interesting point emerges out of this syndrome of approaches to bnguage and writing. This is the ilcceptance, sometimes explicit sometimes merely inferred, of the importance of quotation - or at any rate of the selfconscious capacity 10 demarcate others' words and voices in the midst of one's own, and to il degrL'C disengage oneself from them. [t is noteworthy thilt in these large if sometimes misconceived illtempls to understilnd our world such a key role hitS been givCll to quoting - alllhe more important, therefore, to explore the additionill settings for this intriguing human cilpacity. 5 Further discussion Or examples relevant to issues discussed in this section C3n be found in (among other sources) Brockmeier 2000, Bublitz and Hiibler 2007, Duranti 1997, Feldman 1991, Finn"gan 1988, 2007 (esp. lOff and Chapler 2), Humer 2009, Hunter and Ollmaroll 1998, Lucy 1993, 2001, Mishler 1S81, Olson 1996, Olson and Kamawar 2002, Tann"n 1985, Urban 1984, also examples in following section.

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6.2. The wealth of oral quotation A plenitude of on.going work is in fact no\\" illustr,lting the complexity of oral communication, demonstrating among other things that it by no means precludes the detachment and objL'CIifying which in wrifu'n contexts is often signalled by quote marks. A 'meta-' or reflexive attention to language and the abstracting of particular concepts or verbal passages for contemplation ur l'M>gesis have ocen wdl ducumented in lan8u"8"s which orcul"tc in predOminantly spoken fonns. So too has the deployment of others' words and voices in spoken fonn - for art, utility, exhortation and a galaxy of other pUrpOSL'S. This work is by now well L'stablished l'ven if, given the continuing emphasis on written forms, it has often received less attention than it d(>serves. So, this time focusing not so much on cases over time as comparntively across differing culturl's, let us start with some exampk-s of quotation from largely oral settings, where writing, even if practised by some is not a pervasive presence. Hen' proverbs have attracted p'lrticular attention. They arc 'the paradigmatic case', in Kann Barber's word;, 'of t(>xts cited as quotations'

(1999: 21). The term remains somewhilt elusive, admittedly, but is a convenient one for short popular sayings which arl' recognised as to a degree crystallised and self-standing, useful for s(>tting the immediate situation into wider, distanced, perspective. The words invoked have a kind of detachnble autonomous standing in their own right, something with their uwn substance and - precisely fUf that reason - quotable. As copiously illustrated in the literature on verbal art. proverbs are quoted not only in the 'hefe and now' of the contemporary scene, but thruughuut the world and in a plurality uf sihwtiuns. 6 They al\' prolifically cited in Africele tactful reminder not to interfere with people who know their own business - 'The maker of a song does not spoil it' - or the Hilusa 'Even the Niger has an island': like the mighty Wl'st African river, even powl'r must soml'limL'S bow. The way to get hospitality among the Zilmbian l1a used to be the ironic quotation of 'The rump of the visitor is made to sit upon'.' 6 For an informative introduction to the extensive literature sce Mieder 2oo4a, 2008 (where he describes proverbs as ",,,,, .. ,,,eula Imwra"a), also earlier works such as Burke t941, Obclkevich 1987. 7 For further examples and references Sec hnnegan 1970, Chapter 14, and for more

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Similarly Joyce Pen field (1983) describes the 'quoting behaviour' of Nigerian lbo speakers as they cite proverbs in a culture whl're, as she explains, quotes carry high prestige. Provl'rbs were used to foreground a textual formulation, depersonalise it, and make it weighty by attributing it to 'the experts' and the ancestors (penficld 1983). Citing a proverb like 'A person caught in a pepper garden is accused of stealing peppers' enabled a mediator to deliver a guilty verdict with the authority and detachment of another's words while, lower in the power stakes, workers protested against unfair treatment not in their own words but in the double-voiced proverb 'The cow says you can do anything to me but don't roast me on the fire like you do other animals', making their point but ,woiding the risk of owning the words personally. Proverbs are equally notable among the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana (fully described in Yankah 1989). Here, as often, the skill lies both in selecting a proverb relevant to the occasion and in how it is performed. Akan proverbs have in some sense an objective existence as something that can not only be cited in the flow of discourse but also manipulflted as quotable units in contests and (unwritten) collections. They can be alluded to in abridged form or elicited in alternating voices whl're participants build on shared knowledge to complete the quotation in full, fI strategy eloquent! y exploited in sermons to active audience response. Proverbs like 'The tongue never rots' (the words of the ancestors can be applied it resolving a conflict), 'The tSl'tSl' fly stands in vain at the back of the tortoise', 'If a car reverses it's not a sign of ddect' are sayings from the past that can be inserted whole or in part into current speech. But if proverbs seem the quintessential CilSC of oral quoting they arc not the whole of it. There is a bewildering variety of fonns. The words of others are quoted not only in everyday social interaction, as in dialogues reporting what others have said, but also in more formal verbal genres where speakers present somCQne else's words. Quotation isoften prominent in verbal artistry; and, in oral as in written narrative, the action in a story is frequently cilrried forward through the quoted words of characters within it, with the double-voiced narrator at limes uttering in more than onc persona, commenting while also personifying. Explicit quoting is marshalled in various ways. In speech ilS in writing, both the exactness of repeated chunks oftext ilnd theparticipants' perception of quotedncss are of course related to the differentiill expectations of genre, recent work Baumgardt and Ilounfour 2004.

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speaker or situation. Sometimes a Cjuite variably repeated expr('Ssion is accepted as ultimately the same s, capilble of being ddib('rately display(>d as an object for attention, existing as 'a detachable autonomous formulation' (Barber 1999: 20). Here inde('d ilre the familiar processcs of framing and display; ('xt('rnalising a p'in 2003 and further references th,,~.

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Simil;uly Karin Barber comments on how in African oral performances more generally a text can possess.1 kind of autonomous existence: Something identifiable is understood 10 havc pre-existed the moment of utterance. Or, altemativc!}, something is understood to be constituted in utterance which can hi' abstracted or detached from the immediate context and re-embodied in a future performance. Even if the only place this 'something' can oc held to exist is in people's minds or memories, still it is surely di5tin~uishable from immediate, and immediatdy-disappearing. actual utterance. It can oc referred to.... [as] somethir.g that can oc treated as the "bjat of commentary - by the communities that produce them, and not just by the collector Or ethnographer (Barber 2003: 325). The aspect of 'quoting' th
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are not presented in his own words, but in those of his teacher. and are to be followed as stnctly as the curing practices he describes, also always in the words of his teacher.. By quoting hi~ teacher, Olowitinappi is able to anticipate particular issues and problem~ he will face in Mulatuppu diseases, financial concerns, and personal criticisms (Sher~er 1990: 125). Through thl'Se multiply pr\.'SCnted voiCl'S Olowitinnppi WiIS nblc among other things to demonstrate that he h.,d indeed acquired the necessary knowledw..'. INhrn he was talking about having heard his teachl'r perform thl' necessary chant, he quoted the teacher's ml"ITlorised words (quotl'S within quotl'S): "'Now I prepared th" farm'" se<' he says. "'Forsix, six days we prepared it''' see he says. .. 'Now I planted the medicine'" see he says to me. "'All this I planted for them'" sce he says.. (Sherzer 1990: 151). The whole is shot through with the omniprcsenlX' of reported speech, with 'the extreme point of quotation within quotation reached ... when Olowitinappi is quoting his Il'ndwr, who is quoting Ipelele, who is quoting il Choco lndiiln, who is quoting il chief of the spirit world, who is quoting God' (Sherz('f 1990: 125). Olowitinappi's extensive use of quoted words WilS chilfacteristic of Kunil formill oriltory, As in other speeches it was punctuilted with speech ilttribulions like svkc ('Sily') and takken sake ('sce he says') and by the many devices for ml'tacommunicative words, phrases, and affixes provided in Kuna grilmmilf. The rhetoric of quoting constituted il rich ilnd nexible resource for displilying irony, humour, allusion, metaphor, understatement and dramatic nnrration, all extensively deployed in Kuna verbal artistry. Mediational quoting is another established form, overlapping but rilther different from the cases so far. This is when a speaker has the explidt task of acting as vehide for another's words, sometimes conducted in highly formalised settings. A well-known practice ilmong Akan-speaking peoples in West Africa for example is 'speaking for the chief', The chief does not utter in his own voice but communicates through a specially-appointed 'Speaker' whose formal .md h.ighly-regarded role is to transmit the chiefs utterances, enhanlX' his authority and make his words beautiful by being 'wrapped in a flourish of poetic language' (Yankah 1989: 84, 86). AI lower levels too other Akan person.lgcs sometimes h.we their own speakers to dignify their utterances by having their words transmitted through the mouth of another. Similar pr,'ctiC<.."S are found in many parts of West Africa. At C1.'rcmonies in

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northern Sierra Leone even small-scale chiefs would pause after every couple of so;>ntences to i'lllow their words to gather weight by being rclayed onwards by soml'onc.d!;C, and speilkers in multilingual Sl.c'ttings mad.' simili'lr paus('S to allow i'ln interpreter to translate their words into anoth,'r languilge - arguably yt't anoth.'r vi'lriety of (luoting, i'lild ccrtninl y i'l rerognition of the dcti'lchability of iI chunk ofsomL'Ono;>'s words. Allied to this is the practice of mcdiumship, found in many areas of the world. I-terc words are olJCrtly i'lttnbukcl to SOIT\l.'OIW other thi'ln tho;> presenl llltcrer, as th., rTh·diumspeaks or sings with anolher's voice in a stale of possession, drt"am or trance. It is iI complt"x process indt"ed, with tht" 'I' of the sp"aker whQS" voice and body carry the words being to iU1 extenl bolh on.' and mnny; and the souro..' from which the words corn" not always simple 10 pin cWwn. But in one Wily or anolh,,]" the spet-'Ch or song is C(JIlct'iv.,d as belonging not to the medium currently uttering it ~ or not only - but orib>i.ni'lting (rom elsewhere: i'l IOC.llJy notilble spirit perhaps, a d"vil, 'tIll' ance;tors', tn" 'Holy Spirit', or just 'Th"m' as thos" inhabiting a sphere tr"llscending the immediacy of the present 9

Fig. 6.1 Nepalese sham~n communing with the ancestors in trance. Kodari Guru, a senior shaman from the T.hangmi community, enters trance during a healing ritual (or a ynung woman. While in this altered itatc of consciousness, and with hiS ritual implements laid out bero..., him as a boam of sunlight enters the dark room, h., rommunicall:s with the ancestors in an elevated or ritual regist"r of Thangl11i \Ising llllu,lIal vocal patterns (location: Thamigaun, Kodari, Sindhupakok, Nepal January 1998. I'hoto by Or Sara Shneidt'mlan)

9 For mediational comnnmicatioll see for example BJUl11all 2001, Hill and lrvine 1993, Kapehan 2007 and (on the Abn speaker) Yankah 1995.

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There are also more indirect and allusive ways of invoking the words and voices of others in oral expression. In some contexts myth telling is a kind of reported spet-'Ch originating frum uutside the current speaker, and certain socially recognised figures taken to be in some way uttering the words of another through their own mouths. Mapuchc singers in southern Chile often sing the songs of othl'rs, l'Spl'Cially of those now dead, where the 'I' of the singer is at once quoting and singing in their own person (COUl'Sl' 2009). Spanish proverbs In New Mexico arc introduced by quotillion - framing Vl'rbs, usually in the past tL-nse, subtly implying that they Wl'rl' taken from 'the talk of thl' elders uf bygune days' (Briggs 1985: 799-800). Sometimes the claim to be quoting can be a strategy for partly absolving the sp<::aker of responsibility, exemplified in the Madagascar practice of framing a tale with phrases likl' 'Lies! lies! It isn't I who am the liar, but the ancients who made up this talc' (Haring 1992: 141), Or it may be a more remote implication of another's voice, as with proverbs in Wolof which are understood to be received from ancestral generations: 'recognizable by genre conventions and metaphorical content [butl not marked by a quotativc construction' (Irvine 1996: 147). Or again, the voice of the poet-seer (griot) in several West Afric,m societies is intimately bound into the concept of quoting. QuotJtive framing is virtually impliCit in the SOCial identity of the griot, S<) central is quotalive 'transmission' volI"/i) to the very definition of the gnot's place in society. That is, quotative framing is implicated (at least as a possibility) simply by the social identity of a sentence's uttercr, if the utterer is a griot (Irvine 1996: 148). Here as so often in the context of quotingness, perhaps especially if unwritten, it is in part the dialogic role of the audience that constructs Md validates the words as in soml' sensl' those of others. Thl'rl' can be furthl'r layl'rs of comp!l'xity, for vocaliSl'd quoting is of course also common in settings where writing has a significant presence. As Wl' know not just frum Ihl' British mass commentators' examples but from our own experil'nce, widl'Sprl'ad literacy does not prl'wnt everyday conversation being replete with the voices of others: with reported words, texts, allusions. In sophisticatl'd and multifac('(l'd ways thl' spl'aking voice cites what others have written as well as spokl'n. lO For centuril'S - and now too -the words of writtl'n texts havl' been qUrlted live in law C,lSl'S, speeches, ll'ctures, liturgies and rituals. Now as in the ('<'1st spoken Sl'rmons are packl'd 10 further examples and discussion in T"nn"n 1989: l'Sp. Chapter 4.

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with quotations which also find their place in the written scriptures. Not just in our own 'here and now' but to an extent throughout the world it is common to encounter the prncticcs of vocally reproducing memorised texts that often also have a presence in print: from proverbs, classic literary works or the sacred books of the grent faiths, to newspaper he.ldlines or phrases from the lntest best st>lIer. Mutunl interactions between oral dnd written quotntions - in mnny cases over!.lp or mterpenetratlon - have in fact b('('Tl common for centuries. The written texts of Christianity or the verses of the Koran, much quoted today in both written .md spoken form, nrguablv had their antecedents in orally transmitkd sayings, just as the words reproduccd nnd quoted in the nccount now in Matthew's gospel - the rL'current example in Chapter 4 - were doubtless long quoted ornlly in one fonn or nnother before they were crystallised in writing. In c1nssical nnd medioleval limes when books w('re scarce, quotnlion often came in the form of unlettered people rept>ating passages tht>y had m('morist>d from hearing them in st>nnons or readings by the literate, and by now wc arc familiilf with the intersections of written and oral in, say; a contemporary poetry recital, a stnged drama, or a collection of spoken proverbs c.1ptured into writing .1I1d then in turn quoted orally. It can be tempting to ,lssume that here the written form somehow has priority; whether in historical s('quence or as the essential mode in which such texts truly exist. But formulntion in writing does not necessarily havl' precedence in people's active engagement. Quoted snatches of songs and hymns, liturgical repetition, proverbs, familiar quotations from nge-old writers, public recitations - all these forms of quoting may live in vocalised nctualisation as much as in whatever plilce their 'original' texts arc also to b(' found. Such repeated chunks of language can be, and certainly often arc, also captured in writing but their enachnl'nt as quotation mny equally wdl be most actively manifested - and experienced - ns speech or song. In its actual usage a quotation may thus be expencnced as acoustic reality ns well as, or perhaps even more than, through written npprehension, tnking on n sonic life of its own. One striking example of this is the worldwide practice of Koranic quotntion when' the smmrl is perhaps even more salient than its reproduction .1S visunl text. Certainly the Koran does exist as n written text, regarded with reverence as the divine book beyond all others nnd reproduced in wondrous material forms. But for many its reality lies in its oral existence -it wns after all first heard not handed over in writingnnd it is activated in its oral-aural delivery. As Wil1inm Graham explains it

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Although the Qur'an has had a rich and central role in the history of Muslim piety and faith as 'sacred book', it has always been pr~minently an oral, not a writtcn tcxt... In thc history of Islamic piety and practicc, thc rolc of the writtl'Tl scriptural text has always bel'fl secondary to the dominant tradition of oral transmission and aural presence of the recited text (Graham 2005: 584). Recitation is not plain 'reading' but intoned in rl'«Jgnised ml'lodic and sonic patterns. It is common for Muslims to learn I"rge sections by heart, able to r"'Peal them aloud from memory: echoing quotations that st.,y with them, soml'times coming in auditory form at crucial muml'nls throughout their lives. Even two or three words uttered by a fellow-Muslim MC enough to call up the sound of the full, memorised, quotation, in 11 shared knowledge of the melodic c.,dl'llces. The speakers are nut vuicing thl'ir own words, nur unl'S ultimately sourced from written text, but those of Allah himself. From the quoled excerpts chnnted aloud in remote villages of Sierra Leone by young boys who do not, and probably never will, learn tu read, Of the popular media (orm of C
6.3. Quoting blossoms in performance One diJl1('lIsionof non-written quutation is thus the manipulatiun uf vocal sound. But the arts of oral quoting go further than just audition. Participants in liveoral quotation can tap into a plethora of multimodal resources that, depending on genre and setting. can eventuate in mun' dynamiC and multidimL'rIsional signals than those offered by the visual and static marks of written modes. Some signals, certainly, overlap with written conventions. There is the
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as chang~ of tense, mood or language, quotative terms, h~arsay particles, special registers or diction. or phrases like 'don't forget that ... ', ' remember the wurds ... '. There can similarly be explicit attributiun to sume previous speaker, wheth~r by name or by a reference 10 some imaginary or symbolic figure (as in the Akan proverbs introduced by 'Th... tortoise says... '). Such signals are in general commun to both spoken and written quoting, but their detailed incid~nce of course varies across genres and contexts. An example of a relatively recent innovation is the l'mergence of the terms 'like', 'go' or 'all' to introduce a quotation in colloquial spl'Cch: as in 'And [ was lik... "What does she know iloout it!'''. Sometimes ambiguous .1S to whether it is exact spoken words or more general thoughts or impressions, such markers nevertheless clearly imply.m enquoted voice and 01 way of standing back from .1 s.lying (including when uttered by oneself). These quotatives are now rcliltivcly well established in inform'll conversation, especially among younger speakers, Md are also grndually S<'eping into written electronic intNchilnges. 12 But spoken quotation can illso draw on ildditlonal wnys for marking someone else's words. It employs not just lexicnl forms or the visual signs of script, but, potentially, il huge filnge of multisl'nsory resources: visual, kinetic, bodily. dyn,unic, rhythmic, prosodic, and material. Th... comments of the British observers in Chapter 3 have already illustrated how others' wurds can bl' indicated to their hearers by dynamic auditory and gestural rather than scribal means. It could be by 'pausing ilnd slightly changing my voice', for example, or, in a reminiscence of how the speaker and his teenage friends distanced themselves from the adult wurld, by using 'everydily phrases in invisible quotation marks, invisible but made visible by heavily ironic intonation'. Such devices, widely practised in the highly liil'mte settings of today, have doubtk'Ss oc'Cn equally established through the ages as key mechanisms in the engagement with others' words Md voiccs. The fact that something is a quotation is thus oftl'n communic.lted not by overt words but by some small change in timing or intonation. Among the Maya the quotation of others' words is marked not just by speech verbs or quotative pilrtides but by a 'shift in voie<' quality; phraSing or bodily posturl" (Hanks 1990: 215), while in Ghana, the citation of a proverb is shown 'by il particu lar tone, pause, du ration or emphasis to achieve a particular rhythm' (Yank.lh 1989: 255). In Madagascar proVl'rbs mc markcd out not so much 12 For 'Iik,,' etc. S<'e Barbieri 2005,2007, jon"s and 5chieffehn 2009.

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by text as by performance. Lee Haring describes how speakers switch into special codes to signallhis, one by spreading his arms and leaning forward; another by changing her lune as if for sume sad annuuncement. a third by standing up. What makes an utterance a proverb is the way it is hcard. not with the sensual car, but with that complex and variable attention of which every participant in the scene is capable. Rather than the repetition of fixed wun.]", tll"", (',,",vcd... I'cdun"~""" wuul<.l lot:ll"r 1.>" <.I",,,ri1.>,,<.I ~, ,!tifli,,!; into an alternative code. The seen" remains the same, but th" sp"ak"r makes use of a different channel, such as gesture or intonation, a dIfferent message-form, or both (Ha ring 1984/5: 144). How the utterance is heard can be a key factor in making it into a proverb, a quotation. As in other Jive perfurmances the audience can cu-define what is said and experienced. Charles Briggs for example describes the nonverb,ll cues by which both speaker and listeners recognise the quotation of proverbs in New Mexicu: Memben; uf the audience who are familiar with the genre emit a number of signals at the beginning of the performance that indicate that they are aware that a performance has begun. These include leaning fonvard, raising the eyebrows. smiling. and gazing intently .t the speaker. The nonwrb"l behaviour of the speaker and the prosodic fcltures of her or his speech are distinct during the utterance of the proverb text and the remainder of the diso;our'ie. The utterance of the text is generally sel apart from the remaining features by a prettding pause as wdl as by changes in the speak"r's facial expression and in the pitch, speed, and volume of deJil'er>~ The anticipatory stale of participanls who are familiar with the genre reaches a peak during the utterance of the text. Upon its termin.1tion, such p~rsons will smile. laugh. and settle back into th<'it chairs (Briggs 1985: 805). For an oral quotation to b~ fully recognis~d as such it needs to be v,llidaled by Ihe multimodal behaviour of hearers ,lS well as speakers. And because live perfOnTlilnCe mostly invol vcs some kind of a present audience, a speaker can throw on il par! of the responsibility for understanding and completing the acl of quoting. The markers used in oral quoling are perhaps less definite than written symbols but for that very reason in some respects more flexible and manysided. They have Ihe potential to convey a subtlety not open 10 written signals which, in their more explicit usages lit least, purport 10 impose a clear separation between differing voices. They can be brought into play

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to delineille - and comment on - oth..rs' words almost wh ..rev.. r these corn.., along the various continua from verbatim to parnphrased speech, or from memurised tu improvised or ",-cr..ated text, and with greakr or lesser highlighting of their quotedness. They Ciln structure informal spoken interaction, dramatised repetition, re-enacted dialogue or. indeed, broadcasts or r..adings from written t..xt. Gradations of quotedn..ss Ciln be conveyed through tone of voice and by picking up cues from the audience as to whether certain signals need to be more overt. An explicit and clearly demarcated quot.., expl'CIed tu be r"'cognised, can be indicat..d in one WilY, while fonns which have sunk more into common usage may be hinted by more gentle changes of tone or timing, and fainter intertextual echoes and allusions conveyed differently yet again. Unlike written quote milrks,there is no Cill! for aH-or-nothing decisiun. And illl this can be dune, furthermore, in mid-flow and in subtle and flexible ways, varying at different points during the d..,livery. Speakers embody others' vuices in a variety of WilYS. The quot..d personage is sometimes brought vividly on stage through n host of nonverbnl as well ns verbnl cues, using the mnnifold devices of dramatic enilctm..nt. Another's words can live through direct presentation in the frame of a charackr portrnyed in a narrative sequence, in different voice from that adopted by the narrator or other enncted characters. The teller has a renlm of possibilities for animilting the quoted speaker's personality through ilceent, mimicry, vocal quality, gesture, hesitation, facial expression and a multitude of other characterisations which arc perhaps not fully conscious for either iludil'llce or narriltor but cilrry amazing ..ffl'Ct nevertheless. The same is oft..n true of quotation in a story's developing action, where the tone in which the character's words are delivned can suggest, alternatively, innocence, b'llile, deception, over-cunfidence and an infinitude of othl'r features which may in their turn be laying found
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Even in Icss dring quoted as - more, or I<'SS - those of another and to tingl' them with the doubl(>-vuiced resonancc of the ultcrer who controls this rccontexhmlised occasion. hnaginaryspcakeT'S C,ln be introduced too, thcirwords perhaps ridiculed by being presenk'd in pretendedly naive or blustering tores so their arguments can then be demolished -a fGsion-milking. [n 'ldversarial judicial CilSCS. irony or ridicule in quoting witnL'Sscs' words CM be conveyed by tacit vocal and facial cues, or the quoted voice enacted as, for example, that of an \Infl>Spon~ive bully ur, altemntiwly, of n wnrm ilnd credible human being with emotions attuned to those of the hearers - sometimes with significant consequences for n jury's interpl1.'iation and dccision. 14 On the same lines shifts in n speilker's nttitude in fl,lntion to some quoted voice can be fleetingly indicated by chMging rhythms, intonation, stance, mimicry; voice quality or facial expression. At times people cast even their own words into n kind of distanced semi-quoting mode by a trnnsient selfmocking tone or by somehow 'othering' it through filce or poshlre. Much can be conveyed by a wink, grimace, sneer, or eyebrow rise. Someone transmitting nn order with which they disagree can convey just by the way they sp<.'nk that the words they nre uttering ilre reilll y someone else's. As Bilrry TruilX reminds us, there arc neat ways of doing this 14 For further comment and illustration sce Baynham and Slembrouck 1999, Cavicchio d al. 2005, Matoesian 1999.

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Guarded language, carefully controlled pitcl\ range, and absolute rigidity of tempo and dynamics in a speaker may make us skeptical of what the person says, We 'read between the lines' that the person is self-protective and anxious to avoid personal involvement, particularly that of an emotional nature. Bureaucrats in particular perfect this style of voice when repeatmg the 'official' policy of olhers 10 avoid taking re~ponsibilily (Tn'ax 1984: 36). The non-verbal cues of live performance can readily parallel the free indirect discourse of written lexls where an author presents someone else's yoice while lit Ihe same time his or her own yoice speaks too. Adopting multiple stances to the words being uttered is a well-honed feature of speech and dialogue. Non-verbal as well as yerbal signals can be exploited to construct more than one perspective on words being littered and allow rcsonanccs of others' thoughts and voices to sound through an enacted performance. And there is potential too for mingling many or all of Ihese facets in complex interaction, as in the striking Gikuyu gkaalldi riddle-like dialogue songs in Kenya where not only is each perfonTIer's voice stratified into plural voices (some narrative, some meta-commentary) bUI the voices of two singers compete and cooper
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6.4. Music, script and image The most obvious focus for a treatment of quotation would st'('m to be its verbal realisation. This indeed is the main thrust of this volume: the exampll's so far have thus primarily been from the written, spoken and sung forms where quotation has flourished so strongly over the centu ries and across the world. But we should also look briefly at other modes, in particular musical, pictorial Ilnd material forms. lll're too analysts hllye drawn on the concept of quoting and quotation, and tackled similar issues to those surrounding the verbal repetitions of others' words and voices. [t is in fact only a small step to extend thl' SCOpl' to music. The live performances just mentioned have already brought us into musical expresSion, for, in addition to the acoustic qualities of speech generally, quotations in chant and song in particular draw directly on the artistries of sound to make their point. But. elusive as the topic proves to bc, it is also worth taking some account of quotation in music more widcl y. Musical compOSition and performance have long been characterised by borrowing and repetition. like poclry, but even more so, music is marked by repeated pilltcrning, in this case across multiple dimensions such as melody, rhythm, hannony, intervals, instrumentation, and dynamics. Within the same work iln clement of self-quoting is often expected repetition, near-repetition, vilrintion, echo - ildding depth through the regularities and reappearances, often very deliberately so; and in many genres of music, repetitions or parallelisms in the form of refmins, fugues, 'vnriations' and thematic C'1aborations arc admired aspects of the art. Selfquotation across a composer's own works is not uncommon either, and can carry increasingly potent meanings with each pu rposeful repetition, as with Wagner's leitmotifs or the constant reuse of themes in Elgar's compositions. But as well as this kind of self-quotation and the repetitiveness of particular stylistic conventions, there is also plentiful musical quotation - or should it be called borrowing? or copying? - between works and between musicians, Just where to locate 'quoting' here, and how to characterise it amidst these repetitive complexitil'S, is perhaps even harder to pin down or ilgrt'(' on in music than in verbill text. Varying styll'S and listeners hilve different ilpproilches and assessments. The processes are largC'1y shaped by cultural expectations about genre, production and participilnts, linked in turn to assumptions about what counts as copying, what as creation. In jazz and bluL'S, iteration and repetition arc promment to an extent that in other

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musicill traditions might be regarded as copyright violation. And across music generally, what some hear as merely th(' ('xpected conventions of the genre or ildmire as crentively deployed remini,cencl'S, repented motifs, or deliberate resonilnces with other works, othel"S condemn as derivative borrowing. pasticheor plagiarism. In music, as in vcroal art, quotation merges into unconscious intertextuality, col1a8l'S, unplilnned but nonetheless potent echoes, ilnd evociltive illlusion. TIle extra elusiveness of musical quotiltion comes out well m the current controv(,l"SJeS over its legal definition, with intens(' argum('nts over just whilt is to cuunt as musical quotation or how in any given case the 'original' is to be d('fined: as score? phrase? meludy? rhythm? performance? recording? sonic fabric? Nondhek>ss, even in face of th(' multidimcnsiooality o( music Md the ill ways-puzzling continuum o( the moT(' and the less overt, there are clearly repetitions in some sense of oth('l"S' musical texts in a form that would SC('!ll, at the least, akin to quotation in verbal discourse. There are ammgements nnd varintions by one composer of someone else's th... mt', sumetiml'S - but not always - explicitly acknowledged. A known melody CM be incorporated into a new composition (a folksong. say, carrying with it evocative overtones from the Original), a musical idea from another's work used in iI new CI'eiltion, or a snatch from elsewhere briefly inserted into a longer work Even repetitions that arc not explicitly acknowll>dged may still carry auditory associations for lisk>nl'l"S or players, perhaps, as with all quoting. more amsciously for sum;> than (ur othl'rs. The same can be true of rhythmic repetitions, as in the often replicated opening rhythms of Beethoven's fifth symphony. The theme for Jesus's last moments on the cross in Bach's Sf Juhn's Pa:;sioll ('Es ist vollbramt') was repeatedly used and built on by later oomposcTS - C. [~ E. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Hilydn, Schumann and Mcndclssohn among them - becoming a symbolically fraught nllusiw traditiun in many nindl'Cnth-cenhlry wurks (R;>ynulds 2003: esp. 147ff). For a more recent period David Mctzcr has charilctcrised quotation ilS a key cultural ilgmt in twcnticth-ecntury music. stilrting from O1arles Ives' musical quotations to cr;>ntc nostalgiC childhood scenes ilnd extending across multiple styles (rom classical to expcrimcntaJ, jazz and populilr idioms (Mctzer 2003). MusicaJly-sct V('rbaJ texts have il pcculiarly potent role in quotation. SI Pnul's words in the New Tl'Stament 'The trumpet shall sound, ilnd the deild shaJl be raised, incorruptible' hilve been mueh quot~d over the ilges, but for many arc now most vividly experienced in their echoic musicaJ realisation in Handel's oriltorioM~'S.~iaJr. Here as in mnnysimilar cases it becomes ambiguous how far the quotation is il musical onc, how far verb,l1 -perhilps it is both. Or

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if I try to quote the negro spiritual 'Steal i1wilY... ' I find it neilr-impossible to divide the words from the music: the quotiltion S(X'!llS 10 need both. In such CilSCS, i1nd perhnps abuVl' all with well-known sungs, Ihl' dual verbal-cummusical quality can also be split into its separate elements, to be quoted either alone or together, providing an adQtation, reaters, whether or not consciously; can, iIS Kristinn Nelson puts it, 'use melodic patterns tu refer to other pilrtS of the text, other rcdtiltions, other fL'dters' (2001: 6). Song parody is another long-established art, plilying on the link bL"'vcen words i1nd music and invoking associated echoes in a way th,lt cuuld, as with other fonns of p
x'nd her victorious Happy and glorious Long to ~ign over us God sal'e the Qu"en

,15

(on the right): God h"lp our aging Queen, Through troubles that she's s~n God help the Qu~"'n, MiHvns lake th" piss Out of her family's Anus horribihs God help the Qu<,<-'Il"

The fun 13y not just in Phil Alex.lIlder's play on the usual words of 'God save the O-ll'Cn' and thl' ell'ver tupical allusiuns, but also in the ringing repetition - the ...mic quotation - of thl' stiltely i1nd pompous tunc of thl' British National Anthem. Thl' issul's uver music arl' cl'rtainly cumplex i1nd multi-Iayerl'd - but then so they arl' for words wherl' indeed many of thl' saml' questions of interpretation .1nd cultur.11 debate arise. Therl' is not spacl' to pursUl' them furthl'r hl're, except ml'rl'ly tu notl' that herl' is Yl't anulhl'r arena fur humanly deployed intertl'xtuality; borrowing, allusion - in short, for quoting.'7 16 httpJlwww.amiright.cum/parudylmisc/tmditionaI424.shtml (7 May 2008). 17 tl1uskal '1uotation and borrowing is now a growing field of study, only treated cursorily here: further discussion and ref"",nces m Burkhulder 2001, Gabbard 1991,

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It is also interesting to retum to writing, but from a diffen'nt perspective from before. For written forms lead into the further fidds of graphic, piCtOri,ll imd material fonns in which quuting also has some kind of presence. One dimension of writing. it can be said, is its capacity to capture and frame words in a visual medium thnttakes them away from the triUlsient moment of speech, [t sds them out as in a way detilched from the immedinte occ,lsion, cilf\'ed out from the now of speech. Indeed some scholill'S sec writing as ill ways a kind of quoting. a way of putting language on the stage, David Olson goes so far as to SUggL'St that 'Writing down has the effL'C! of turning utteranCL'S into quotiltions, thereby distilncing the text from the authur' (Olson 2CXl6). But if writing does indeed sometimes have a part in constructing whilt it displays a.._ quotation, its role is not constilnt. It is thL' more sali,.nt when written fonns arc in some way set out with pilrlicular prominence, or where writing is a restricted nnd perhaps honorific medium. In such cases the very fact that somdhing is written can indeed imply that here Me Singled out wurds, set 'lpart frum ordinary SpL't'Ch. In situations of limited literacy, enshrining the words of sacred texts in written books or temple decorations has indeed given them ,1 special status, words rooted not in ordinary humiln speech but originating from the divine. In m,my po:.'Op1c's experience today that special standing is no longer an automatic property of writing - in most situations, that is, for it can still be displayed in such a way ,lS to l>nstilge particular chunks uf text for special attention. Thus a written inscription set out on a bUilding, n tomb, a t"'pestry,'" mural can acquire a quote-like authority from its setting. Pulitical or religiuus slugans are still prominl>ntly displayed on walls and b...nners, on entrances to buildings, in posters and advertisements. Literary or religious snippets arc shown not iust in high-Mt settings but on coins, texlik'S ur fridge stickers, their displayed locatiuns bringing out their quoted quality. Now as in the past writers use special layout to highlight quoted epigraphs at the head of chapters, authors display testimonials from others on the covers of their books, and people select mottos to weave in written form into tapestries, imprint on clothing or decorate in framed wall hangings. And even now, amidst Widespread print. words framed in elegantly presented fine print or luxuriant web pages arc made to stand out as objects which, like quotations more generally, arc signalled for display and contemplation. llluminatcd calligraphy still strikingly frames written Meconi 2004, Mctzcr 2003, Reynolds 2003 and (on musical copyright) Mctzer 2003: Chapter 5, Toynbee 201n, 2006.

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177

words. This was so of the image which started out this book (Fig. 1.1) but applies above all when words arc set in beilutifully decorated manuscripts or volumes perceived as transmitting the words of God. It is also worth recalling that 'writing' covers a variety of forms. As exemplified in Chapkr 4, visual features like colour, size. script or layout can bring an element of quotedncss to particular wurds or phrases. In the decorated calligraphy uf some manuscript and earlier printed furms these \'isuill indiciltions were even more expansive, with words clothed in wonderful displays to bring out their standing. The enstaging was not just a m
Fig. 6.2 A calligra:rhic declaration of faith.

The constantly quoted 'There is nO go but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger' IS insCflbcd In 1nl' form of turrds running from rlght to cenlre, wlth Ihe left half ItS near mirror-reflection (reproduced co'~rtesy Kenncth Cragg) In Chinese calligraphy picture and wriling
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Why Do We Quote?

And this of course shades into the ingenious way illustrations often go along with written words. The mutual cooperMion of verbal and pictorial quotation daks back many centuril's. 50metinll's the words arc part of Ihe picturl', with text and image working together. There are numerous representations for example of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, the event that follow ...d hard on the preparations described in the passage quuted from SI Matthew's gospel in Chapter 4. Here in a sense the im.lge with its familinr associations is as much a kind of quotation as the words (Fig. 6.3 is just ont' example among many pictorial accounts of this event).

Fig. 6.3 The entry inlo Jerusalem. This shows Christ entering Jerusalem in triumph, riding on a donkey (lsabdla BreVIary. 151h century ©The British Library Board, Flritish [jbrary Images 021635)

In uther cases phrasl'S are sdected out from within long...r works and attached as captions 10 illustrations interspersed through Ihe lext, giving these phrases a degree of quoted ness through Ihci r pictotinll y-li nkcd displ
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In religious texis, certain phrases sometim<-'S become, for some readers at least, for ever associated with the picture. So too with the illustrations that adorn many wurks, frum cunk'mpurary children's sturi<-os ur university textbooks to cartoons and newspaper reports: they act as the vehicles for highlighting particular textual excerpts. The images help to structure the words as quotation, reinforced and repeated in a complementing medium. Proverbs and maxims have been a favourite context for the explicit Iinkmg of verbill and pictorial quotiltion, and hundreds of books in diverse formats have presented visual images of proverbs. TheSl' go back at least to the fifteenth century when books of illustrated proverbs becilme extremely popular. Proverbs w rillles, for example, was a mediaeval French collection of prowrbs with illustrations, designed (as its modern editors put it) 'for the lesser folk of the middle ages ... with its in formal illustrations, homely phr.lses and popu lar conceptions' (Frank and Mint'r 1937: vii). It contained 11 series of nearly 200 pen and ink drawings with, below each, an 8-lin<' rhyming stanza in (fifteenthcentury) French ending with a proverb or proverbial saying (Fig. 6.4).

Fig. 6.4 'To hunt h"r<.'s with" drum'. The rhymed French stanza below the picture ends with the pro\"erb Dr prrlldrr lieur"" a" tabour ('to hunt hares with a tabor Idrum]"), i,e. ludicrously to attempt the near-impossible (I'ror.
]80

WIlY Do We Quote?

nll~se

included such long-known sayings as (in English tr,mslation) 'God helps those who help thcmst'ives', 'What the eye Sl'CS not the hc,lrt rues not', 'All is not gold that glitters', 'There's many a slip bChVC'en cup and lip' (hcTl' as 'mischance between muuth and spoon'), 'In Ihe country of the blind the oneeyed is king'. all exemplified and brought home by their vivid ilIustratiuns. In Renaissance literature a popular illustriltcd genre combinL-d ildagcs with epigrams, p'lrlllleling the burgeoning numbers uf text collections like Erasmlls Adage» and 1Is successors but using the art of woodcut 1Ilustrlltion 10 cllilblc readers with [ittk' Lltin to grasp the meaning more clearly. Emblem books in huge numbers set oul words intensified in visual imagt'S which not merdy ilccompani"d the quol,1tion, but manifested it. As the sixh'cnth-ecnhJfY print"r Henri Etienne put it, the '{>ffiblLm' WilS 'a sweet and morall symbol which consbts of pictllTl'S and words, by which some wL'ighty sentenl"'L' is declared'.1I Quotation pictures have also bL'Cll created in thei r own tight, unaccompanied by verbal text. The sixflocnth-century Dutch artist Pieter Bruegellh!'- Elder was onl' of many to produce elaborate proverb pictures. His most famous, 'The N('thcrl.lndish Proverbs', was painted in oil on oak panel in 1599.

Fig. 6.5 'Two dogi oVer on.. bon.. s.. tdom '181'....'. Detail from Pieter Bn'egd the Elder's proverb picture

Sometimes dubbed 'Thl' topsy turvy world' - ilnd with reason - it depicted the follies and absurdities of human behaviour through its illustration of around a hundred FI<-mish provcrbiil[ expressions. II g,lVe pictoriill expression to such sayings as (in English tmnsliltion) 'Hig fish cat Hltl
19 On thIs celcbrilled proverb picture

~e,

among other sourtts, Meadow 2002,

6. QrlOtntioll in Sigh! and SOllnd

181

Fig. 6.6 Ashant; goldw~ight rroverb. Many Ashanti proverbs were depicted in the fom\ 0 tiny brass weights used for wC'lghmg guld. This On" demonstrates the futility of individuals trying 10 snatch for tru:.msdl'C' what should k for the good of alt hi' Iwo crocod,les whose SCpar:ltc heads .1I"e stupidly compeling even though they share the samc stomach (Copyright@ThcBrltishMuseum) Proverbs have also long been pictorially quoted on cloth, ceramics and sculptures. They have appe'Hl'd on tapt'stries, in broadsh(>t"ls, stain"d glass, on coins, stamps, and in wood cuts on mediaeval misericorcls. In Ghana proverbs Wl're reproduced as designs on tl'xtile.>, staffs and umbrella tops where tht' material r"'presentation mlher than Ihe verbal Iext gave the meaning. And nowadays innumt'filble ex,'mpll's of ilIuslrated proverbs and familiar sayings are quotl'd in light-heartcd as well as more serious forms, with or without verbal text: in maga:zin",s. pusters, T-shirts, cartoons, tea towels, children's mugs, car windows, bookmarks, playing cards and advertisements. In some cases the images alone carry the quotes, without any visiblt, words. We sel' this in somt' st,'ined glilSS windows and religious paintings, for example, or in today's prolific representations of the three monkeys which often stand on their own (without the word$) as a statement of tht, wl'lI-known 'Sce no evil, hear no evil, spl'ilk no ~vil'. Anuther famous case comes from Wesl Africa, in th.. Ashanli practice of representing proverbs in the fonn of mini,HuT(' brass figurl'~ used as goldweights. One depicts a m,1l1 smuking a pipe and holding a pot, conVl'ying the pro\'erb 'We mill' smoke the pipe even while we carry gunpowder': even in il crisis pleasure cannot be totally sacrificed (Yankah 1989: 99). Another illustr"tes a proverb Mi"d"r 2004b, 2008.

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Wily Do We Quote?

about the futility of individuals trying to snatch for themselves what should be for the good of all by two nonsensically competing crocodiles (Fig. 6.6). The quotation is activated through tht, material obj"'1:I. 2C Examples of this kind would seem to bring us to the edge of 'quoting' - certainly to the edges of the main focus in this work. But they remind us that quoting in some sense at least extends seamlessly intu many fields and, furthermore, that the boundaries of the 'verbal' arc scarcely fixed or uncontested. Th(' capacIty to highlight for attention and allusion, or to set out words as somehow r,,'muved from their pres('nt surroundings and originating from elsewhere does not lie just in wrinen lines or vocal presence but is also activated through many media, even sometimes without the dir('ct display of words at all. Thesl' giV€' a further window onto the versatility of human communication and expresSion - multilay<'red, shot through with many voices and echoes in sound, Sight and object. Prominent ilS ar,,' the forms ,md devdopment of W('stem-style quot(' marks or written cullections with their powerful status in the hierarchies uf Western educillion, the long humiln engilgcmc'nt with quoting spreads into multiple fidds beyond these rich but limited domains.

20 On Ashanti proverbs,;,:,,, especially Yankah 1989.

7. Arts and Rites of Quoting

Thcn' is imitation, mudd, and suggestion, tu the "cry archangds, if we knew their hislorv (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The greatest genius will nevcr be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusi\'dy from his own rC$C>ur<;cs (Goethe) Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle (Woody Allen)

Quotation. imitation, lradition, allusion, model, reminiscence - thcS(' and similar notions mn through the study of literature, of ritual and of culture.

Others' words and voices come in speeches on official occasions, in rituals, religious texts, and genres conceptualised as 'high art'. The works of Milton or Wordsworth are crammed with allusions ;md parallels; Laurencc

SternI";; Trislml/J Shandy. the poems of Alexander Pope, the writings of Colcridge and countless other works in the literary canon borrow from earlier writers; and Renaissance literature fed among other things on the anthology of saws from earlier texts. Kuna ritual oratory featured quotes within quotes, Greek and Latin historians used their characters' speeches to forward and embellish their narratives, and quotation was a key dimension of the literary arts of the West African Yoruba. Alluding has been among the most frequentl y used literary devices, sermons and theological expositions brim with biblical quotation, and the works of certain modern writers MC sometimes described as wholly m,lde up of quotations. However it is defined. quotation in one or another of its many transformations weaves through the literary arts and rites of humankind, as creators and hearers evoke ;lIld play upon the words and voices of others. This chapter returns to verbruly articulated fonns, both oral and written, to dwell on the high arts of literary and ritu
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Why Do Wc Quote?

holds such a prominent place. Here are arenas of verbal expression where through the ages humans have intensified the manifold resources discussed so far to make lavish display and manipulation of the words and voiet's of others and hold them up for admiration.

7.1. Frames for others' words and voices How.lfe thl'Se .lrtistnes of invoking olhers' words and voices exercised? There arc no single answers and di versity perhaps as evident as predictable patlerning. But it is striking how frequentl y-and how richly- olhers' words and voices hilve been e];lbor.lted in certain p.lTticular frames. They seem to be captured above nlJ in the settings of narrntive, of poetry, exposition, religious and ritual genres, play; and (different bU! still worthy of note) as se! f-standing excerpts. So let me briefly comment in turn on each of these.

7.1.1 Narrative and its plural voices Onc frame is indubitnbly nMrative. Here is a spnce peopled by the voices and words of multiple characters, fertile field for the storyteller's creating arl. Narrative is regularly activated by individuals' words and the interactions of speaking chMncters, and. as Bnkhtin remarks, fiction unlike other literMy genres depend!' on the presence of multiple individual voices (1981: 264). Examples Me legion. (n Homer's storied epics the reported words of heroes and gods pervade and enact the talc. Odysseus spenks trickily with the Cydops, Priam begs the body of his dead son, the deities talk and plot ilmOng themsel vI's. In historicill nccounts the narriltor'S art presents actions and motivations th rough the words or verbalised thoughts of protagonists. In Thucydidcs' great history of fifth-century BC Greece, the famous enunciiltion of Greek democracy, itself much quoted through the centuries, was set in the mouth of the Athenian Perides. Repetitions of eilrlier words run as leitmotifs through narratives, in religious accounls prophetic voiet's and sayings link past and present, and the point of anecdotes and jokes often lies in spoken interchanges between fictive actors. Trickster ta(es in Africa and the Caribbc,ln depend on dialogue in the spider's distinctive voice; in dr.lma and opera the action is carried by the interaction of plural voices, sometimes with meta-commentary by some further speaker - a chorus perhilps or prologue speaker; in novels of ewry kind the presence

7. Arls and Rites ofQlloting

185

of indi viduals' spoken, sung or inwardly meditated words is often crucial to unfolding human acts, thoughts ,md pnssions, while in the Amazonian Kalapalo narrative traditiun, quutl'd dialugue is the prime ml'ans thruugh which individual characters and their relationships are developed (Basso 1986, 1992). Journalists' 'stories' contain Invish quotntion from the words (supposed or otherwise) of its key personnges, and biographies, personal narratives and first-person fiction commonly include both inner speech and dialogues as the prolagonisl 15 seen cng,lging with the flow of life. In biblic'll accounts loo quoting is constant, wdl brought out in Savran's Telli"g and Retdlil!g. Quotation itl Biblical Narrati1Je: Instead of ~Iating the story e~clusi vely by third· person na native 'telling', there is a strong propensity toward the liS.. of direct speech for 'shOWing' the attitudes, motivations, and personalities of the characters through their own words.. \Vithin the scenic mode typical of much biblical narrative, it is dialogue that adds dramatic prescnc.. to the story and encourages confrontation with tll.. eharacters (Savran 1988:12). This is quoting in perhaps ils simpk'St and most diIT'ct form. The different voices are immediately pIT'sent. HeIT' we have, it might seem, the transparent words of certain others, dl'marcMed Ihrough visual, linguistic or, in ural delivery, multimodal Signals, the narr,ltor taking on the voice and words of the story's characters. These are not unmediated reports however. They are narrntive creMions formulated according 10 expected poetic convl'ntions, and interpreted and appreciated as such. In live performance the narrator may indeed assume different personae, not just in the reported words but in lone, demeanour, and charncter. But it is that Ullrmtor who urchestrMes and presents the wurds, turning them in particular ways. Even in what might at first seem the unsophisticated prose of a newspaper report, there is a certain poetics of nrtful construction as encn quotntion is 'recorded, cropped, framed, attributed, placed as import;mtwithin the narrative structure... Reporting as storytelling is both borrowing and constructing' (Bndnrncco 2005: 12). As B,lumm puts il in his nptly nnmed A Warld ofOthns' Word.", in narrative wc meet 'that merger of narrated event and narrative event that is characteristic of quoted speech, which does not merely recounl, but rc-presents the quoted discourse' (2004: 21). The array of possibilities opcn to narrators is extensiw. Sometimes dialogues directly carry the story line forward through enstaged words, perhaps as in the filmouS ballnd of 'Lord Randn!' without any overt

186

Why Do Wc Quote?

interposition by the narrator. There is scope for multiply varying nuances between the voice(s) of the various protagonists and the controlling author's voiCl' - which itsl'lf may differ again frum that uf the narrator as constructed within the text. The author's voice can comment subtly through what arc ostensibly the sayings or thoughts of the characters. Thus the stylistic device by which the Dun's speech and thoughts are reproduced in lofty style in DUll Qllixute makes this at once the words of the leading character and Cervantes' own comic satirising of high-flown pompous language, skilfully contrasted with the earthy proverb·laden style of the squire Sancho. Sometimes the narrator's voice is prt.--scnted as the mouthpiece for a possessing spirit or earlier prophet, or as coming from some external source of inspiration. This may merely be a short prologued invocation. Thus Homer starts by calling on the' Muse' and the 'Goddess' to tell the talc, but thereafter they are little in evidence apart perhaps for imparting some tinge of otherness to the narrative. But an opening attribution to some ancestr.ll voice or earlier teller may lay foundations for a more tangible presence throughout. Explicitly changing the teller's identity has also been a common artifice in fiction, like the sturies within a story in TIle 71101I.-ech and dialugue. The piping voice of Suiwe the har;> in Central African tak'S, the narr,ltors Md charncters in Chnuccr's orally deliwrcd tales, the tones of the dying Lord Randal all bring thcirwords and prcscnccsvividly to life. Here above all we can scarcely draw a wedge bchvt.>en text and voice. The prutagonists enact the drama in the words expressed in sonic nnd somatic pcrfonnance - the wice and words at once of impersonated actor and narrative orchL--strator. Something of this quality of nctive vocal enactment can come through in written narrntive too, and in the substantial area of written/spoken intersection. The speaking character can carry multisCllsory overtones for reader and audience, as the imagined perfonning voice and its words mLosh togL->t:her. Just 'whose' voice and words arc being presented can be ambiguous,

7. Arts alld Rites o/Quotillg

187

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overlapping, perhaps deliberately riddling. One can infiltr'lte 'lnother, and conec present; or at once ,letin!;; protilgonisl and all-seeing narralor. And which sounds louder al ,lilY given time may itself Ix- shifting and rel,I!lVC, heard differenlly by individuaJ participilnts. With all its f'lusive qUillitif'S, the combination of ch,1T<1clcrisation and n.lTralive nuthorily results in near-infinite opportunities for the artful orchestr'lling of others' words and VOiCL'S - opportunities which. it appears, hnve been extensively laken up throughoUI the world .lnd across the centuries.

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7.1.2 Poetry Poetry provides a boundless field for the cultivation of quoting ('poetry' in the rough sense, that is, of recognised art-genres which broadly contrast with narrative, ofatory or prosaic exposition). [n more roundilbout and allusive ways than in the speech of narrati\-ised characters, poetry too can be polyphonic. Differing personages may not be pMaded overtly on the sl1l8e but sev~>raJ poetic voices may be in pia}", maybe in shifting .~nd shadowy presences within the text, not fully unveiled. There ,He manifold avenues here for the artful layering of interleaved voices, from direct and explicitly marked quotation to hidden associations and reminiscences which carry both creator and audience beyond the immediate words. Some poetry gathersextcnsive quotations from one or morcpre\-ious texis, reassembled in a new setting. Sometimes earlier wording is repeated in more Of less exact filshion. The long-lilsting Liltin genre of the cellto for example was deliberately constructed of bits from elsewhere - ,1 light-hearted aesthetic manipulation of copying - while in more recent times and more serious v~'in T. S .Eliot's pOI'ms, integrated and controlled by the iluthor, are steeped in quotation from earlier writers. The insertion of quoted passilges C.1I1 be- more spasmodic or smaller-se.lle but still declare itself ostentatiously through sOme milrk of style, imprint or delivery - the 'misins in the cake' that bring momentary delight to the pali1le in Hennan Meyer's nice metaphor (Meyer 1968: 4). Self-quoting of a kind can have a role too through the pamllelisms and repetitions that often figure within poetic works: in refrains, h.uped-on imOlgcry. repeOlted lines Olnd phrases, sometimes ,111 the more ringing as the words unfold time and time again. 50 too with sonic parallelisms .1I1d cadencl'S in spoken and sung poclry. From proverbs or epigraphs to long excerpts or PilraUelS from earlier texts, recycled repetition is a marked feature in many poetic genres, one .1Spect of their multi-level and echoic quality. Others' words and voices enter in more indirect and hidden WilyS too. Quotation COln intenningle seamlessly but still- to some cars at least -cMry a barely perceptible aura of other times and plOlceS. Allusion has been a wonderfully deployed tool in the poetic arts, much noticed and d~'bilted l'Imong IiteriHy scholars. References to the myths and poetry of Greek and Roman antiquity thread through European literature, .lnd everywhere, it Sl>(-'mS, po~·tic authors are ready to drench their compositions in the river of allusion. At grcl'Iter remove MC intimations from the poetic models followed, themselves with reminiscent echoes - sonic, visual, wrbal - and

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their recurrent re-ilppeilrances increilsingly redolellt for those familiar with them. Nor should we forget the notion of intertextuality, in which all texts arc in il Sl'nsc cunstnlctl'd frum l'urlier unl'S and build un poetic memoryeven if not fully recognised by illl- re-creilted in thei r newlY-ilired settings. In that the diction is reoogruscd as somehow 'poetic', it is alrcadyin a sc-nsesct ilpart from people's ewrydilY language. This too is perhilps a kind of quoting-a reilppearances frum another time, another voice. In Gian Biagio Contc's anillysis Poetry maintJins its noble distance from ordinary IJngo.lilge preCisely beCJUSl' podic language is rt'used language. 11 boasts certain features that l.'xpress and rl.'fll.'ct this distilncl': rhythmical and metrical regularity. parallelism and effects of symmetry or proportion, unusual word order, repdition of expressive features and the expluitation of prosody (alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia), to SJy nothing of the total dfect produced by the figures of speech (Conte 1986, 43). In poetry above all, perhaps, thl're is an ambience of olherness, even myslery, enilcted through the variegilted depths, eddies ilnd glancing lights of words and voices from beyond the present.

7.1.3 Exposition and rhetoric Here is another ample field for others' words. In pnilosophic or theological disquisitions, sociill or literary analysis, political argument, ilctivist tract, public oratory, ilcademic discourse or scientific proposition, quotillions from supporters, opponcnts, long-time ,mthorities, previous workers in the field, or ildmired personages arc il familiar and expected clement. This is not the inherently multiple voices of narrMi vc action but quotation used ilS support, illustration, or ob}!'cl in the context of evidence and argument. Earlier words or opinions arc called in to per.>uade the audience, keep them attentive and forward the ilulhor's case. Thus PI,llo prcsented the reported speech of supposed participants in his dialogues and continually quoted earlier Greek authors to exemplify particular points, sometimes ,1S additionilltcstimony or darificiltion 10 forward his own argumenl, sometimes for viewpoints to destroy. In Ihe same way the academic treatises of today are peopled with the words of prior writer.>, authorities, and (nut least) opponents wh(>fc the motive for thl.'ir deployment milY range from ildmiration or exhortation to vilification or attack. The words of others have long been wielded in leg'll conte>:ts too, with quotations artfully managed to

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convince others of some conclusion. In contemporary court cases,
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quotation-drenched, whether arguing a particular Cilse, performing on some commemoriltiw occ,lsion or simply displaying th(' arts of d('bate or promotiun. In public speechl's - pulitical, sermonic, ceremonial - citing others' words hils il regular plilce, both in contexts when the audience is expected to be already familiar with the source, or explicitly signalled by such phrilses as 'in the stirring words of Juhn F. Kl'nnl'dy', 'as Mahiltma Gandhi put it', or, of the deceilsed being praised at a funeral, 'She alwilYS used to say... ', Oratory is indN!d one of the notable framl'S for quoting, from the elaborate theory ilnd practice of classical rheturic to the arts of contemporary speakers. LOCill debating societies were singled out by several British observers as prime sites for quoting, well pilrallel('d by the ninete('nth-ccntury LO\'('dale Litnary Socil'ty's debates in South Africa's mission school, studded with Shakespeare, Dickens and Scott (Hofmeyr 2006: 270) - a common practice in colonial settings. Quoting from classical iluthors was a recugnised stylistic engine in the nineteenth-century British House of Commons as members 'wiltched a piece of oratory moving on from point to point, to culminate in the e.\pectrd passage from Virgil or Hurace' (Kellett 1933: 12) and the collection Respectfully Quoted Similarly testifies to 75 years of Members of Congress bombarding the Congressional Research Service to ch('ck on a quotation 'for a speech right /h110' (Platt 1989: Preface). Nl'Ison Mandela's speeches flow with Shakespe,ue quotations, skilfully marshalled for allegorical political comment ('Hath not a Jew eyes?'), and Bar,lck Obama's eloquence lies in part in his invocation of known proverbial, biblical and poetic wordings, his oratory peopled with historical perSOn
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7.1.4 Ritual and sacred texts Here is ,mother common frame for the wielding and m
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The arts of quotation find their place in written religious texts too, most famously in the sacred books of Christianity, Juddism, and Islam. These are notable sik'S for quotation, both within the works themselves and in their many reproductions in manifold contexts throughout the world (for an example on a high hill-top in Devon see Fig. 7.2), and in the echoes and overtones surrOlmding their use, feeding back further into their quotativeness. The text as a whole is sometimes conceptualised as emanating from dIVIne words, but within it are also quotations from humnn personages from ,lCross the nges: the words of ancient prophets, parallels from earlier accounts, allusions to events and images from elsewhere. The Bible conlnins not only direct quotntion of the words of God himself but also earlier utterances by characters within the naer,Hive, 'lifted out and recontextualised as part of a new temporal and spatial configur,lIion' (5.wran 1988: 12), Quotntions, nllusions and echoes take the readcr both back and forward within the lext. This happens in other IMge-scale works too, of course, butlhey have ,1 particular flavour in religious sl,ttings where quotMion can validate and inform the fulfilment of prophecy or the relation of events to some transtemporal sphere that both inhabits and transcends time. In the Christian Bibll" the book of Revelation is crammed with words and echoes from the Old Testament, while Matthew's gospel is famous for illuminating the birth and acts of Christ through prophetic sayings from centuril'S earlier. Thus Jesus' early ministry was 'so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled': The people that (i"cd in darknC5S hiwe scen il great light light has dawncd on those who li"ed in the land of dealh'5 dark shadow (Matthew 4.14,16 (quoting ISillah 9, 2) Revised E"glish Bible).

- words that were themselvcs to be requoted countless times over future generations, written, spoken and sung. Such quotations structure the account, explaining, celebrating and giving weight, setting the narrilled events in the context of the unfolding destiny of God's continuing plan. Refercnces,md allusions to such religiOUS texts both persuade and carry the aura of an outside authoritative voice. As a nincteenth-ecntury commentator had it. such quotations aet 'nol merely to prove a doctrine which is doubted or denied, but to give addition,ll force 10 truths commonly received ... land] impnn to them a new interest, and a higher nuthority' (Woods 1824: 9).

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Not all quotations in religious literature arc so explicit. But the repetitive ring of their wording, both spoken and sung.. can stut invoke another's voice. The Old Testaml'nt's 23rd Psalm for eXillllple ('The Lord is my shepherd') has led to innumerable translations, allusions, and paraphrases that have rung down the ages, some closer. some more tang<.'ntial but still carrying a host of associations. And ewn those who might oot connect rden'nces to the good shepherd directly with their Old T('stament sourc" may still s"ns" a rdigious colouring and valIdation, takmg th"m beyond present voices. So too with reminiscenc<.'s of the eVL'Tlts and characters of Buny,m's Pilgrims Progress, source of quotations and allusions ,lCroSS many continents of the world, Nor of course is it just in Christian texts or those of the other 'religions of the book' that recycled words have acquired an at least quasi-religious status. People everywhere no doubt dip into the sea of their own profoundly me,lningful symbols and associations to dte others'words - Confucius, Mao, Marx, G.mdhi ... - growing in resonance with each repetition. Speaking on behalf of an external principal whL>Se words an' animated by another is no doubt a common rhetorical device in many settings, but it comes through with particular force in ritual and religious settings. The originating speilk"r c,m be conceptualised as existl'llt in some transcendent source outside and beyond the voice now uttering them or in the written text currently enshrining them: they are speaking the words not of themselves but of God, of Allah, of the Prophet, of the anCl'Stors. Dual voiCl'S often sound through, perhaps experienced dissimilarly in different phases or by different participants. In possession rituals the words may be fully accepted as those of the possL'Ssing external spirit, the pn'sent speaker or singl'r being mL'rely the mouthpiece. But even in less flamboyant displays the multi vocal pulls of both here and other can inhabit the language as speakers and writers play on co-present voices. Speilkers can transfl'r between their own expressions ilnd those of the extemal beings whose words they speak, In Lowlilnd South America myths the tellers shift along a continuum bctwccn being narrators of the spirits' deeds and identifying with a spirit itself, bringing the otherworld into the present (Urbiln 1989) while Afro-Baptist preilchers delivering 'the word of God' move from plainer language into an intensity of rhythmical, repetitive utterances and multi modal ddivt'fy as they 'bring down the Holy Spirit into themselves' (Pitls 1993: 22ff. 160ff). ReligiOUS ilnd rituill occasions have the capacity to carry pMtidpants beyond the workad'ly presence, in part through the opportunities they provide (or the artfully marshalled presence of polyphonic voices ilnd evocatively rcpe.1led words.

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7,1.5 Play We should not forget, either, the playfulness that ilt times colours all these forms, PMody, puns, satire, ilnd clever twists on known wording have rools in the fertile ground of quotation, mimicking and echoing established texts in amusing, sometimes devastating, ways, This frame again hils a long history. The vcry word 'allusion' derives from the Latin all"d"r" (10 mock, pby with), suggestiv.. of ils ludic, game-lik.. dimension. Parody was cultivated as a fine art in classical Greek literature, with mock imitations of others' words and styles in many settings, from epic ilnd drama to Plato's dialogues and Aristophanes' comedies, f,lmous for the burlesque parodies which at the same time functioned as subtle literary commenl through their comic allusions, exaggerated imitations and sati rising of olher playwrights' words and Siyles. Playing with words is dearly most effective for - ilnd principally directed towards - those ilcquainted with the original(s) being mockingly imitated. For those acquainted with the genre, Cervantes' 00/1 Quixote brilliantly lampooned the classic knight-errantry talcs populoU in his time just as Erasmus' //1 Pmi:::c vf Folly wittily pilrodied the rhetoric and learned writing of his day. [t is those familiar with Pope's famous couplet Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in Night. God said, I.d Newt"" be! and All was Uglri (Alexandee Pope, 'Epitaph for Sir I"aac Newton') that Me best placed to ilppreciate J, C. Squire's 'continuation': tt did not lasl: the Devil, howling 'Ho, let Einstl'in be', restored the status quo (Squire 1926: 218). For a longer example, il is helpful to know something of Words worth's famous sonnet with its sonorous opening Two Voices are there - onc is of the Sea, Onc of the Mountains; each a mighty Voi,e tn both from age to age thou dids! rejoice; They were thy chosen music, liberty! .. (Wi1Iiam Wordsworth, Thoughts of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland'). before reading James Stephen's cheeky and (Ontertnining 1.1mpooning of Wordsworth's style in his

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Wily Do We Quote? Two voices are there: one is of the deep ... And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleal5 articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep. And, Wordsworth, bolh are lhine: '11 certain time~ Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes, The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst. At olher limes- good Lord' I'd r~lher be Quite unac<juainted with the A.B.C.

Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst {Stephen 1891: 83). In more everyday settings a common strategy is to change a familiar 'luoh.> only slightly to turn it to some unexpectedly ludicrous purpose or delightful twist on the original. This artfulness structures many riddles and jokes, while the wittily altered punchlines of the popular punning-story genre again rely on the audience's knowledge. The proverb 'People who live in glass huuses shuuldn't throw stones' is the clue in the talc of a chief with an old throne. One day, an important visitor arrived and pre5Cnled him with a magnificent new one. He couldn't be discourteous ~nough to refuse it, so he stowed the old on,;> under his hut's grass thatch. But alas it wasn't strong enough and the throne feU lhrough the roof and killed lhe chief below. So - people who live in grass houses shuuldn't stow thrones {adapted from Binsted and Rltchie 2001: 276). In quotiltions turned upside down, the joy lies in the subversion of the 'normal' version: 'Never do todily what you can put off tilllomorrow', 'Hell hath no fury like a CEO on a spiritual mission', 'Too many legislators spoil reform', 'People who live in glilss houses should dress in the bilsement', or (of a bronzed Tony Blair's fleeting return during the 2010 British election) 'Cometh the hour, cometh the tan'. So too with the many Shakespeareanreminiscent book titles with their humorous ildapt'ltions or incongruous juxtapositions - A.s Yim Hike It; Frie'ld~, R(l/IIIW~, PrOle~llmb; The Re~tl~ NoL"/?; or Signifying Nothing: TIle Semiotics of Zew. Light-heilrted :IS milny of such parodies, puns and distorted echoes prove to bc, they arc, for their very playfulness,
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7.1.6 Displayed text Collections and displays i1re, as wc have seen, another common fr,lmework for the highlighting and celebration of quohng. In quotiltion compilations, extensively elaborated as they have been over the centuries and throughout the world, human beings have long engaged in the art of explicitly framing chunks of words and putting them on-stage liS quotations. In less portenlous selting,.; loo excerpls, mOltos. 'Iexls', proverbs, .,nd ,.;ayings have been spotlit as spedal- quoting as iI convenient as well as evocative tool in the creation of verbal or visual art. Others' words have been conspicuously re-produced on samplers, on buildings, on pictures, ,1S calligr,'phed texts like that opening this book (Fig. 1.1), as epitilphs, inscriptions, epigrilphs, book titles and framed texts on walls, Gravestones arc a prolific locale for display of quotations, interacting with visual and pictorial artistries, so too arc monuments and (as in Fig. 7.2) prominent stones. Shakespeilre quotations (again) arc constantly given new life as titles of books or plays (and not just a parodies), some many times over. All the Wnrld's a Slage, Tide:> ill the Affairs ,if Men, All Our YeMerda.lfs, TilL, 5n'Pter'd /sle, and Brave New World arc only a handful of thc many where, again, the voice of n known or perl'1
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and IhC' layered

~tana.'~

of irony, humour, parody imd much

el~e

thread

through th£' text. Bul with all thcir overlaps and complexities it is ind{'(>d a notable feature of human creativity that frames like tho~e skctchC'd above have beC'n tooled through the age~ to producC' such scintillating and subtly marshalled artistries,

Fig. 7.2 The Ten Comm;andments on Buckland Be;acon.

The TC'l Commandments, inscribed in 1928, al'{' >till to be '"-'-'n on reds at th:! top of the 1,253ft BuckJand Ikacon in Dartmcor, D<:VQl, though by now somewhat fuded 1hc "left-hand slab has the first four of these fumous Commandments, here quoted from the biblkal book of Deulen."IllOlllYr followed by a favourite quotation of Wtlliam Whitely's (the lord of Buckland Manor, who commissialcd the inscriptions). cm the ripht (emly portly vi,ible hel'{') al'{' the

remalJling Commandmenlsand a quotallor1 from}olvls go;pcl (Grapter13 WT5e~; 'A new COI11manc\rnt,nt/ I gwe untol you! Lowone another') and a verse from the well-known hymn 'Oh God Our Help IJl Ah'C5 Past' ((>!toto: David Ml.lrTJY)

7.2. An array of quoting arts Looking to these recurring frames can only take us so far, for C'ach agC', indC'Cd each group of practitioners i1nd pilTticipants, ha~'C' their own particular takes un them. Analyst~ and practitioners have differC'd over the virtues and vices of particular forms of quoting; over how far 'imitation' is or is not to be admired and in what form; the salience (or not)

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of separating the words of 'others' from one's 'own'; or of what counts as 'copying', what as 'creation'. Setting thL'Se differencL'S in the context uf histurical changL'S illld continuities is one route to understanding the arts of quotation. Detailed accounts of particular periods, areas and groupings are certainly beyond the scope of this book, but it is interesting to consider briefly some uf the variegated threads that have variously coloured both past illld present. Unlike the opening chapters, my focus here is less on everyday ethnography than on scholars of literature and cultural history, with their interest in the literary and formalised genres broadly treated in this chapter. The current arts of quoting - to start there - contain a number of intL,rtwined but on the face of it contradictory strands. There is extensive and deliberilte use of others' words and voices on ritual occasions, in oratory, in many forms of form,11 writing, in literature. But the overt ideologies and rhetoric around these notably vary. On the one hand there is huge emphasis on the explicit marking out of quutiltiun in many expositury fr,lmeworks, above all in academic and school settings. Here wc sec ostentatious and meticulous attention to exact wording, the clearest of attribution to original ,mthors, and the need for cautiun in parilphrasing uthers' words, with any diminution of rigour disapproved, perhaps actively punished. The concept of copyright, though questioned in some circles, is widely invoked and in some fields increasing its grip. But there is also ,1 counter-trend. This is especially prominent among those literary and cultural theorists who question the concept of quotation as sumething distinct and argue that there is nuw a turn towards the widespread appropriation of others' words, This partly relates to the pr,lctice in some modernist literature of intenveaving quotations from earlier authors nut as signalled inserts but as an integral part of their work. Analysts have pointed to how quotation-full writers like James Joyce or Brecht make little if any demarcation between 'quotation' and 'main text', Joyce's Fillllegull's Wake in particular has notoriously been seen as consisting wholly of quotation, a text without boundaries between what is 'quoted' and what is not. But, further than this, the focus among some powerful analysts has become less on the artistries of wielding specific quotations than on the interrelatedness of literary texts more generally. The concept of intL'rtextuality lies at the heart of much discussion - something perhaps common to all verbal art but here especially conceptunlised as the

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connection between literary lexts. This has turned attention to concepts like shared rhetoric and a recognised store of common literary material rather than tu deliberate quutatiun by or frum specific sources or authors. Some sec this as a radical move into 'a literature of the intertextual', as Topia has it (1984: 104). In this view we have been going through an epochal change in the treatment of quoting. Once·observed divisions between primary and secondary text h.we become blurred, thus marking a notable contrast to an earlier treatment of quotations as discrete inserts separate from and auxiliary to the 'main' text. The recent pattern, it is argued, is to omit <juotation marks and abolish the older hierarchies between original and secondary, with the appropriation of existing material now acceptable as a valid part of the creative process. Some postmodernist writers thus pOSit a new outlook which in effect removes the borders around quoting and abandons the idea of quotation: Since Ihe end of the nineteenth century Ihe slatus of 'luotation has been onc of the mostcIUcial and problematic aspecls of wriling. IndL",d the literary texl issitualed more and more in relation to the multitude ofotherlexts which circulate wilhin it ... 11 ceases to be a block dosed in bv slable boundaries and dear origins of utterance. [t then appears as an open configuration, strewn with landmarks and furrowed by networks of rde~nces, reminiscences, cOIU1olalions, echoes, quotations, pseudo-quotations, parallels, re.lclivations. Linear reading gi"es way to transversal and correlahve reading, where th" printed pnge becomes no mOre thnn the point of inter5eclion fur ~"lrata issuing from myriad hOrizons ([opia 1984: 103).

This is an interesting take on the contemporary scene. But not all would recognise this 'eclipse of quoting' (the phr,lsing in S.utiliot 1993: 3ff) or the sharp distinction from earlier practires. Appropriate as it may be for some gen res it is sc.1fcely applicable to all. Academic· based dema rC<1lions between 'quoted' and other material arc if anything more rigorously obserVC'd now than in the past, most novels still include demarcated dialogue, and it is not clear that the pluml voicL'S in all contempor'lfY poems are radically different from those of a couple of generations ago. And other commentators, while recognising the fertile notion of intertextuality, would still detect rel.lIivcly discrete examples of inserted quotation in current literary art. Nevertheless it is fair 10 set the current awareness of the constant links between ""xis against the contrasting ideology of the romantic periud - another clutch uf roots for the mix of current views, and a powerful background to which reccnl analyses still respond and interact.

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The eighteenlh- and nineteenth.century romantic movement's vision of 'originality' and individual genius meant deploring the imitation of uthl'rs - and L'Specially uf classical ur nco-classical models - in favuur of spontaneity, emotion and individual self-i'xpression. Not that quoting ceased; allusion, parody, exposition, translahon, and the reported speech of narrative characters still flourished. But rewriting based on earlier models was no longer the fashion and the vocabulary was of freedom and personal authenticity rather than quoting from others, And that in turn was no dou bt itsdf a re,lction against the long emphaSiS on imitation in the classical, mediaeval and Renaissance European litNary traditions, In antiquity, as has often been noted, quot,ltion was Widespread. In classical Greek and Lltin literature authors' names were often giv('n for spedfic quotations in exposition or narration (fictional or other), and intertextual allusion flourished, more, or less, recognisable by hearers and readers. The skilled imitation of earlier formulations and models was admired: 'not so as to filch but to burrow openly in the hope of being recognised' (Scneca the Elder, SWl.~,,,,iac 3.7 on Ovid, transl. Conte and Most 2003: 749). [n Alexandrian poetry the technique of literary composition lay in the rewording or re-elaburation of earlier literature, and emul
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or, equally; with culturally specific notions about the nature of the self, of the constitution of society or the value of the past. Our views of the Mts of quoting today an' culuured not only by current ideologies but also by the mu hi-stranded historical currents leading up to the present These broad-brush sweeps cannot however comprehend the variegated W.1yS that pL'Ople makL' use of - and interpret- quotation. Indeed as came out in the observiltions of the contcmporilry British commentators it is difficult enough even to pin down exactly how quoting is conducted and defined in one given region today. Within what might bL' dubbed a single historical phase or cultural setting many difference; co-exist as authors and audiences tap variously into quotillion's milny resources. So let me add a fL'w specific cases to exemplify some of the manifold W.1yS audiences and authors/performers hilve in practice milde play with the multifarious arts of quotation. These will point up further the problems of definition and analysis for they spill across the edgcless spectrum of using others' words and voices. At the Silme time they ,1150 up to il point take us beyond what has often been the narrow focus on Western history and literacy. We can sI,Ht with the long-lived Jilp'1neSe traditiunal poetry termed wakll, an elite fonn of c.ucfully cultivated poetic I,mguage prilctised from ancient times up to the present. One conspicuous element is the repetition of plilce-nillnes, drawing connotiltions from earlier pUL'ms ilbuut plilCt'S and creating a web of associations for readers and hearers. But the highly conscious repetitiveness of waka poetic style goes well beyond this. Like the fossilised remains of an old tree long buried in a river bed but with its beautiful grain still remaining- a rceu rring image - old material is lovingly re-used and re-created in living poetry. The result is a huge canon of thousands uf ,vaka poems - polished ilntiqucs - many of which look and sound strikingly alike. It is precisely these resemblances that make the poems poetic and the facet to which the reader's and hearer's interL'St turn: Each bit uf wak~ 1,,"I,...."ge dredged and ",-dredged from the poetic past carried its own store of sentiment and accrued invested power. That ~ntimenl remained viable preci~ly because it had been felt and understood So many limes through the ages, and that power ~mained desirable because it had enabled poet after poet te be a maker of poems and a transmitter of that power (Kamens 1997: 18).

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As with making a beautiful garden (another frequent image) the pOl't's skill lay in rearranging known material to display both the points of contact and the departuH's from previous formulations, weaving allusions illld links among and between poems, the man.. valued far being 'repeatedly dredged, rcfashioned, and displayed in new artifacts that reveal, and revel in, their pedigrees' (Kamens 1997: 22). Or take the well-known example of Virgil's epic, the Ae"eid, compos(>d in the first century BC and long admired imd imitated as a classic work of antiquity. It prL'Sents the legendary tall' of Aeneas' wanderings after he fled from Troy and his battles leading to the founding of Rome. It do(>s not glory in the rc-used patinn of snlvaged mat('rial in the Japanese wllkll style, but is nevertheless saturated with reminiscenCl"S and imitations of earlier works. Abov(> all it builds on the sti1l~famous classic Greek epies of Homer from centuries earlier. From its now-famous first words, 'I sing of anns and the man', it reactivates Homer's key themes: the Iliad's account of war and warriors and, (>Vl'n mor(> dir(>ctly r(>call(>d in the Aencid's opening lin(>s, the Odysse.v's talc of the long wanderings of its hero. 'that man of many wiles'. Homeric imitations continue all through the ACllrid. There are recycled episodes (funer.ll games, horrendous storms, the intervl'ntion of gods illld goddessL'S, heroic combat. a visit to the underworl d of the dead). replicated metaphors, even near-exact translation from Homer's GrCt.'k into Virgil's Latin. Equally reminiscent is Virgil's style. In formulaic 'Homl'ric' epithets, extended similes and dactylic hexameter, Virgil is signalling that he too is 1'1 m1'lster of the epic rhetoric.ll tradition, 1'Ind that what he is presenting is indeed an epic to para]]d Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. His audience's understandings, ntthe time and over the centuries, form pnrt of the picture: on the onc hand an appreciation of the epic style and its connotations, on the other their (no doubt variable) recognition of eatlil'r models for passnges now incorporated within Virgil's text but cnrrying poetic echoes of other voices and prior poetic experiences. And the chain continues. As Ralph Waldo Emerson pertin€ntly notes Read Ta,50, and you think of Virgil; Nad Virgil, ilnd you think of Homer; and Milton forces you to reflect how narrow are the limits ofhllman invention. The 'raradi>.e Lost' h
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some more allusive. His was an articulate painstaking strategy, directed to a readership of cognoscenti. Though the quotations were in one sense integrated within his poetry, Eliot was far from seeking to concl'al his practice. In 'The Waste Land' detailed notes signalled his sources, among them Milton, Shakespeare, Dante, Ovid, Spencer. Verlaine, the Bible, St Augustinl', and a multitude of others. His critics call it r"hash, cribbing, repetition. His own and his admirers' position is that his art - carefully constnlcted -lies predsely in the surpristng interrelationships and ironies represented in these repositioned quotations. And even while his readers recognise the quoted sources from which the poem is made up, they are at the same time to acknowledge its unique vain' as Eliot's own. Here it is the poet's mind that compels the disparate materials into unity; and the creativity lies not in the quoted inserts or allusions but in the poet's voice as he manipulates and repOSitions them in new contexts. In Eliot's much-quoted claim Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into somethmg better, or at least something different. The gOCld poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that frum whieh it wa., tom; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion (Elio11921; 114).

Contemporaries like Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore or E. E. Cummings took the same approach, similarly creating Cluoting poems and bringing the direct appropriation of earlier writing into fa,hion. Marianne Moore for example described one poem as 'a little anthology of statements that took my fancy - phrasings that I liked', commenting further that 'a good stealer is ipso faciO a good inventor' (quoted in Diepeveen 1993: 23, 62). Or, to cite Eliot again, 'the most individual parts of [a poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously' (1975: 38). Moving to the contrasting setting of West Africa, we can consider the quoting techniques of tvventieth-century Ghanaian novelists: in some ways comparable to Eliot and his colleagues, in other.; in very different style and contl·xt. Starting from the 19405 and continuing over many decades, large numbers of English-language novels were produced and published in Ghana. A popular genre, this revolved round issues of domestic and conjugallifl' and the pitfalls of marriage: the erring husband, the virtuous tolerant wife ... The 'distinctive, culturally specific quoting techniqul"

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(Newel 12000a: 36) of the novelists bound together quotations and allusions, unsignalled as such, from a large repertoin' of sources, not least those of English literary Iexts, uften in high murall,mguage redolent uf Victorian English. This has sometimes been interpreted as mindless importation from English models - a 'parrut-like' imitation of earlil'r texts, at best derivative and uncreative. But as Stephanie Newel! has elucidated, there were more complex dimenslOns to their arl. An important guestion not asked by critics who are dismissive of 'stereutypes' in African literature relates to the functi"" of these 'gllotalions' from foreign and local resources ... Just as many proverbs are incomprehensible to those without detailed contextual knowledge and experience of a culture, so too the 'deep' me"mngs that attach to popular plots and character types reguire ccntextualisation in order to be understood (Newell 2000b: 160). It was

In

pmt through quuting thilt authur.> displayed their skills uf

selection and of originality, drawing on a wide and vilriegated array of n.lfr,ltive resources. Quotations came not just from Western writing and genrl'S - sometimes mucked as part of.m individual's charactl'risiltiun - but also from local proverbs and the story-song, of young men's local concertparties. In this jamboree of resources 'foreign' was not distinguished from 'local' as authors dn'w on multiple literary sources to fuse their own mcss.lges to their readers. In a single lext, protagonists might USi' quotations from Shakespeare to conclude a lengthr a'1;ument about the de«ptive nature of an African woman's love; the details ofa young COlI pIe's relationship might be narrated in a language dra",," from Fnglish romantic no\"els, while the surrounding kxt i. narrated in a nOll-romantic "'gistcr; and the ~nti-social b"haviour of a character might be judged through the quotation of English moral maxims, plared alongside translations of African-language proverbs (Newel! 2()JOa: 35). The read~rs played a crucial role too. Just as h~.ul'rs interpreted and applied proverbs frum accumplished Ghilnaian urators, so readers expanded quotations in the novels into insights and connot
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Contrast thus with the system of quoting in the Kuna oratory described in Chapter 6. Here it is not synthesis into some main text, but an overt system uf 'quuting within quoting'. Kun'l verbal pl,rformances, remember, are filled with tellings, retellings and tellings within tel1ings - and expected to be so filled: reported speech is omnipresent in Kuna verbal art. Sometimes it is word-for-word repetitions, sometimes less direct interpretations of others' words. In speeches the words ntatiously demarcated. This tradition in some ways gues back many centuries - pedantic scholastic quoting was comically lampooned in Rabclais - but is arguably particularly prominenl in the twenlieth and twenty-first centuries. Texts are sludded with quotations and references, sometimes exuberantly obtrusive and lilVishl y displayed, and usually accompanied by an obligatory apparatus speCifying in laborious detail the original sources of these words of others (fur exemplific'ltiun, if nel'ded, sce AppendiX 1). Besides these f1nunted references 10 other voices there is nlso often dose pnraphr,lsing from enrlier sources, blended into the text and not always acknowledged, as well as plentiful nllusion to images, nnmes and concepts that carry great meaning for those in the charmed circle, less so for others - the practice is more complex and varied than the ideal model suggests. But there is no duubt th'lt obtrusive and loudly Signalled citntiun of the words uf others typicnlly ch
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Homeric epithets (like 'wily Odysseus' or the 'wine dark st"a') of early Greek cpics. The heroic songs were strewn with variants on repe,lIed familiar passag'''s, sung and re·sung again and again in differing settings and combinations. It was a poetic style redolent with an aura of tradition from the past, originating in one sense from earlier wordings, in another n...wly recreatl'd in each p... rformanc.... This could be secn as another form of quoting - of repeating and recontextualising words from earlier minstrels. But 111 its apparent seilmlessness it presents a marked contrast to the deilrly demarcated quotation style adopted in aCildemic citations or the overtly multi voiced Kuna oratory. These cases can in turn be contrasted with the remarkable way in which quoting pervadL'5 the oralliterillur... of the Western Nigerian Yoruba referred to earlier (Chapter 6). Here quoting is again explicit, a prominent and prized feature not just in single genres but throughout much of their literary art, with specific chunks of text marked out as having a kind of separate quotable existence, 'a detachable autonomous fonnulation' (Barber 1999: 20). Yoruba praise poetry for example is lush with passagL'S presented as utterances from or about thl' praisee (the person being praised) ilnd with quotes within quotes. They carry an impfl'Ssion, as Barbl'r puts it, of a 'previliling quotedness of the enti re ti.'xt', further underlined by the fn'quent quoting of words presented as uttered by thl' praisl'e. The chanter swells h...r text by imported fHlgm...nts from dsewhere, not iust brief phrases but fuller songs. proverbs, chain·narrative poems. These arc ingested into the praising environment ilnd yet by their slight foreignness in the text are at the same time a mode of expanding the subjL'Ct's reputation: 'the suggestion is that the performer's skill is so great and the subject's charisma so magnetiC, that all imaginable verbal rcsourCl'S will be induced to flow towards the subject to feed his reputation' (Barber 1999: 31). Th... great cycle of divination verses too are notably hospitable to migrilnt texts. These can come from other genres like myths, aetiological tales, proverbs, riddles and gnomic sayings, and are both fed into the authority of the text and to a degree ret'ain their own identity - at once detached and recontextualised. l'hr.:lses, passages, fragments constantly migrate from on~ genre to another and are incorporat"d, They are not fully assimilated to their host environments, but neither do they remain fully distinct. They arc co-opted but retain, as it wer<:, the aura of othemess and the possibitity of reverting or opening out into a different text (Barber 1999: 26-7).

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Wily Do We Quote?

Not thilt the sou rces of the imported quotiltions in these Yoruba texts are always precisely defined or, indeed, accurately sourced. But the pervasive mode of attribution means that even if the original formulatiun is unknown, the ideil of quotation is constantly present. As Karin Bilrb..r sums it up Quo\cdncss, or quotability, is nol only characteristic of a whole class of utt"ranccs, but is also acknowledged and repr~nted 115 such by the praclilloners of those gl.'nres. It is constantly foregrounded and alluded to ;11 lh"

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incorporation, from cche."s tu ""phcit citation, from a sea mless pulyvocality to altribull.'d direct and indirect speech, quotillion is lal perl'asive and polymorphous feature of Yoruba textualily (13arber1999: 21). This then is a different kind of quoting art from that of the repeated runs and phr.lscs in South SlilYic epic, of the polished waka poetic language or the specificities of Kuna reported speech. Here imported chunks of text arc both inscrted and yct retain something of their 'other' - and detachable - existenc... As Barber mak..s clear, th.. texts of pr.lisl' poems 'cunstantly stress that they arc, in some sense, quotations of previously uttered, already existent formu lations, and not just the tr.lceless development of a cummun stock uf furmulas' (Barher 1999: 26). The art of quoting has also of course been extensively exploited in song, whether in the conwntional high-art western c.mon, folk trilditions, or th.. rock compOSitions of recent years. Quotatiun, r..petition and imitation arc constants, with the added dimension o( musical allusion. Take as onc example the American singer songwriter Bob Dylan, popular over five decades from the I%Os.1 His lyriCS dl"ilw inspiration from a wide range of models, both musical and verb.l!' His tunes and verhal idiom grew out of the folk and blues tradition, mixed in with gospel and rock as well as Scottish and Irish folk song. His songs resonille with these associations, often the more effectively for being turned in unexpected directions. Phrases and lines from e,lrlier songs arc repeated and reworked. The chorus of 'Hard times in New York town' for example evokes the leftwing folk ilnlhology from which it was taken, but now expressed in a new tone and voice. In his famous 'Hard rain' the verses and initial poetic format directly recall those of the traditional Scottish b.lllad of Lord Randal ('0 where ha' you been, Lord Randill my son?/ And where ha' you been, my handsome young man?') before turning to the h,ud rain that's 'a gonna (all' (Dylan 1962). 1 Amidst the huge literature and fan malerial on Dylan I h,1"e found Cartwright 1985, Cilmour 2004 a.nd Ricks 2003 especially pertinent h"re.

7, Arf5 and Rites of Quoting

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Dylan dr
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for example, or
7. Arf5 and Rites of Quoting

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This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies fvht'Te he /ouged to be: Home is IIu .
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to be alive to the long reminiscences that can be carried by quoted voices, sometimes over centuries, not le,lst in the enduring tradition of Western literary art Whl'f(' accumulated layl'fs of styll's, genres, and wordings bring with them echoes and repetitions, at times halfsubmerged, of past voices re-sounded in the present.

7.3. How do the thousand flowers grow and who savours them? The arts and rites of cultivating others' words and voices arc thus varied indeed, Some flowers are carefully tended, grown in well bordered plots, consciously admired and labelled in their differ<mtiilted species. Others spring up in more mixed fonn, less deliberately gardened or recognised but admired in their profusions of colours. Some come year after year after year, others fade after a season or lapse to be revived later. Some arc kept separate and marked out, others crowd together along that huge continuum between the signalled 'quote' ,md the integrated text where quotation is no longer distinct but perhaps spreads its perfume through all. Amidst these many frames, tfansfonniltiuns and diversities, it is understandable that commentators have spent much effort in trying to get to grips with the labels under which they have flourished or been described - quotation, allusion, imitatiun, rl'miniscl'nce, replication, burrowing, plagiarism and a host of others (Fig, 7.3 gi ves a rough idea of their range), Here then is another approach - more comparative and "historical perhaps - to the undl'rstanding uf <Juoting's arts ilnd rites. It has not resulted in much permanent agreement, it is true, 'Allusion' for example has drilwn much debate about whether it is to be looked for in the text itself or in author intl'ntiun, audil'ncl' rL"Cugnitiun, gl'neric expectations, levels, integration, degree or locus of imitillion, or elsewhere. Sometimes the onus is on lilying down the 'best' or 'right' ways to quote, sometimes (maybe simultaneously) on seeking exact terminolugiL'S so as to pin down the natu re and Call'guries of 'quoting' - a contentious and perhaps ultimatel y impossible endeavour." Certain threads do emerge from these analyses however. When set together with the diversities of practice illustrated earliL'r, they point to 2 These debates (in particular on the meaning of 'allusion') arc not reproduced in detail here, but can be richly illuminating not in ;-caching any agr~d final definition but un the spectrum of practices and the complex issues of ideology and interpretation that they uncover: sce especially Irwin 20(J1, Perri 1978, Ricks 2002 and further rderences there.

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Fig. 7.3 A confusion of quoting terms. These m~ny English lerms - some more cenlral ~nd cst~blished. othen; more dimly or pt'ripher~l1yoroccasionallvused - havt' all at me time or another been employed as concepts, synonyms, parallels, elaborations Or metaphors to analyse, replace or link 10 Ihe idea of quoting and quota lion. Some work as nouns, some a. '"erbs or verbal nouns, some arc abslract, some more concrete, but between Ihem Ihey bring oul multiple dimensions and connotations, Indicating something of the range and elusiveness of this complex spectrum of human thought and practice (Design 0 Mark Cain www.cm:<.net)

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certain key dimensions in this multifaceted congeries of modes, intentions and levels that run through literary history and cult~lral practices. The varying terms can be approached not as a road to soml' general thL'Ory or set taxonomy, far less prescriptions about how quoting should be conducted - as they have sometimes ocen treated - but more as clues to gradients in pL'Ople's uses of quoting, differently manifested in different eras and for diffNent occasions and groupings but recurrent all the Silme: a spectrum of dimenSIOns in the unbounded arts of using and hearing others' texts and voices. The participants in the arts of quotation continually crop up as one Significant, if varying. dimension. The obvious starting point, indeed for some analysts the crucial clement, is the input of the creator-.Ulthor, writer, spenker, singer. This its<.'lf is of course compl(>x and vilried. The potential division of labour in constructing and forwarding verbal art goes beyond some simple, if in some contexts meaningful, roleof definitive 'author' for people are involved in many different ways in forwilfding words and voices that are in some sense both their own and not their own. Goffman's still-useful distinction (1981) betwC\.'n the 'principal', responsible for what is said, the 'author' who fonnulates the words, and th(> 'animator' who utters them, reminds us of the distributed voices of textual creation. 'Authorial voiCl." is no single concept ,1nd can carry others' words and voices in clusi\'e ways. A multiplicity of creators milY interact in differing ways - and with differing degrL-'('s of deliberntion - in the arts of invoking others' texts or voices: interpenetrating. reinforcing. oppOSing. qualifying. distancing. commenting and much else. The author's 'intl'ntion' is for some the crucial criterion. But how filr an author (in whatever sense) deliberately calls in others' words and voices is a matter of dl'grcc. It ranges from the carefully signalled quot<1tions in some academic or judicial exposition, right across tu the less deliberate - perhaps scarcely conscious - cross-referencing and ['
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Other participants enter in too: audience, hearers, readers, recipients, interpreters, co-creMors, users who - in varying degrees and fashions Md from a variety uf viewpoints - recognise and activak iI kxt's multivucality. Here too the degree of explicit recognition ciln vary. Kel1ett may have expressed it in overly prescriptive terms in advising authors not to go beyond your public. If you allude, you musl allude towhal il knows. This main law of Literary Reminiscence' do net, except with due precautions, remind your readers of whal they do not remember (Kellett 1933: 9)

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but he is right that this can be an essential (and sometimes overlooked) strand in the texture. The audience's and readers' knowledge and expectatiuns make a difference to how quuting in pr question of huw usel'l manipulate what they r(>ad or hear. In live performanC{' this can be activated vocal repetition, Thus choruses reiterMe the refrains of songs, in one sense echoing the main presenter, in anuther importing yet other vuic(>s into the text, while the call-and-responsc repetitions by congregations of Afro-Baptist preachers intensify the drama and add to its polyphony. Other responses may be more quiet but nonethek'Ss frame the interpretatiun. In Hellenistic ural puetry people built on the spontaneous quotations where, as M. D. Usher put it, 'each versc ... like a link in hypertext, opens up a window onto a much larger set of semantic and aesthetic paramekrs to activate meaning' (2006: 194). More recently, Orson Wc1les neatly caught the sense of recognition and satisfaction felt by play-goers in his observation that 'wc sit through Shakespeare in order to recugnize the quutatiuns'. Diepeveen somewhat similarly describes an audience's reaction to the American writer Rosmarie Waldrop's rendition of her Differences jilf Four Hands immediately after reading out a tt'xt from which she had quot~d. Each time she reached one of these quotations

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A g(XId third of the audience would shift slightly in its seat, ~nding a rustle of cotton through the auditorium. At the same time, one or two memocrs of the audience would involuntarily grunt. The shifters and grunters reinforced in me the belief that quotations do get from its pereeivers a diffurent type of attention than do allusions, and that we do mark <Juotations off from the <Juoting text, sometim~s in charmingly naln: and in\'Oluntary ways (Diepeveen 1993: vii).

In texts for the eye too, readers co-construct the meaning. They expand ilbbreviMed quoll'S or allusions, or, as with the readers of Ghanaian popular novels, pursue links and literary reminiscences they themselves create, an interactive blending of voices. Those acquainted with biblical words and im'lges rediscover thl'm in many verbal contexts, academic readers respond to the allusive words of authorities they revere or abhor. So too footnotes, references, hypertext links and blogging techniqul.'s, leading into others' words and voices, can all be treated by those who so choose as, at least, a congener of quoting. Participants' judgement enters in too_ Admirers of Eliot or of Dylan may see their constructs as conlrolled artistic creations, others be impatil'nt or bored with what they assess as derivative or plagiarised. Specialists in particular genres and periods pick up quotations and polyphonies in texb others Wild ilS univocal. The pl'rceptions participants bring with them, whether individual or widely shared, play a major part in whether something is conceptualised as, say, ,1 matter of appropriation, rupture, corruption, parody, synthesis, or artistic originality; or, again, as complement, illustration, witness, embellishment, reminiscence, or show-off; and what by contemporary readers might be taken as assembling a random series of disparate copying, might earlier haw appeilred as creMiw rl'writing. All in all the multifaceted spectrum of (multiple) participants' inputs and reactions remains impossible to capture in simple definitions, another indicMion of the multicoloured diversity of the arh of human quoting. A fu rther strand rei ates to the degree of illtegrllt iO/1 or sl"parlltion, by some analysts taken as the key differentiating element. At one pole lies explicitly signalled citation, dearly demarcated from its surrounds and deliberately flagged as different. At the other is full assimilation and incorporation, where different sources and voices blend into some new synthesis rather than being held separate and where, even if there is still some slight feel of foreignness, terms like 'allusion' and 'inll>rtextuality' seem more apt. Most lexts can be seen as falling somewhere along this gradient. One

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well·known example is the contrast betweL'Il the Roman poets Virgil and Horace - the former's integrating tendency in minimising the junction, as against Horace's technique of starting off a poem with a quotation from another poet, calling attention to his artifice and signalling it as separate while yet colouring his own through the allusion (Conte 1986: 12,25). And then, at the extreme cnd of this particular continuum, there are the cases where quotations are so distinctly demarcilted as to become nearautonomous. Epigraphs and titles arc onc (·xamplc. Set as they often arc at starts of works or heads of chapters they are both apart and to be rcad togetlu·r with their following text. Even more clearly quoted chunks of text arc sometimes displayed Il~ such, as in compilations of quotations or, in other settings, as self-standing calligraphic displays, epitaphs, posters - or indeed in a mixture of ways at different times. Thus the gravestone inscription It is not dying that distresses me, since this is measured out toall But before my prime of life and before my par<.'nts was in onc context an autonomous text (this onc from third-century AD Phrygia), in .mother lines incorporated over many centuries in the popular literilture of the Creek-speilking world (Hansen 1998: 329). The separation/incorporation continuum again defies any simple characterisation for the differential experiences and expectations of both author and iludiences criss-cross the scale, and the degree of integriltiOn or otherwise may be more, or less, noticed. A subtle and not necessarily fully deliberate indiciltion of setting-apart in a text - a slight chilnge in style, a raised eyebrow in face-to-f'lce delivery. a light touch or sound in a multimodal setting - may for onc person seem a clearly signalled literary allusion or direct quote, for another merely pari of the running-on text. And where one might sec full synthesis, others might find polyphonotls voices sounding through - part indeed of the complex mystery of the artistries and rituals of quoting with its hospitality to simultaneous co-presences. And then there is the issue of what a 'quotation' consists of: its content. If the art of quoting means manipulating and rc-presenting clusters of words, this can be along il scale from more or less exactly dupl icated words through to looser re-present.ltions or p.1faphrilses, inexilcl allusions, .1
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Wily Do We Quote?

allusions to quotes like Shakespeare's 'Uneasy lies the head ... · or abridged proverbs like' Many cooks... '. For relatively identifiable words, there is also the question of their length and durability: how lung particular chunks of words seem to last vari..s, as well as in how exact and extensive a form. The transform.ltions of translation too have long plnyed their part (quotations uf a kind): witness th.. extensive translations from classical Greek to Latin, Latin to vernacular, African-Innguage performances to English or French text, nnd bIblical Hebrew or New Testamenl Greek inlo langunges through thl' world and down the ages. Soml'times the art lil's precisc1y in a deliberate change frum known and familiar wording, as in parody, jokes and epigram, sometimes in a new setting for the same - recontextunlised - words which give them a new lone and meaning. The question of just what it is that is quoted may not iust be a matter of verbal repetilion. The impersonntion of performance for exampk leads 10 a range of possibilities. Mimicry of someonl"s delivery or tone can bring an atmosphere of quoting another, effective whether th.. words, in a narrow sense, arc different or Ihe same. Equnlly significant arc the repetitions nssocinted with style and genre. Waka poetic language, Bob Dylan's images from the black sung tradition, Virgil's metrical fann with its reminiscences of Homeric epic, Ihe overtones of formul,licexpressions, Larkin's combining of earthy language wilh high-culture poetic style - in such cases the artistry partly lies not just in the words thl'mselves but in their flavour and their evocation of voices Ihat arc not just the poet's own or just from today. These many diversities and gradients may indeed seem to have brought us 10 the edge of what is perhaps after all an l'dgl'k'Ss and slippery arena. But this is perhilps the point. There is no onc way to characterise the arts of quoting, resistant as they are to being cnptured within neat or discrete categories. The linl'S betwel'n intertextuality; allusion, reminiscence, echo, parallel and the many other terms which cluster around the art of calling in olhers' words and voices arc ambiguous ,1nd shifting and the multiple krms slidl' into each other. Allusion is sometimes distinguished from quotation but the division hard to agree; parallels merge into intertexlualily; rewriting into originality; emulalion and imitation inlo copying, venlriloquism or plagiarism; repetition into echo, reminiscence or transformation. Reproduction, imitation, authorial voice, report, witness, formulae, borrowing, inspiration. model, allusion, intertexluality - all throw their varied light on the human uses of others' words and voices. Quoting c
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strength, a highlight, a pretension; can be conspicuous, integrated, cryptic, recognised, interwoven; regarded differentially by the many participants in the process; and much ('lse besides. Small wunder thatthL' British mass observers both recognised the significance of quoting yet puzzled about just what it meant. For the malleable resources that humans draw on to create and inhabit the worlds of oth('rs are d('ployed and experienced in multipl(' imaginative ways not just in different periods or for different genres, but even in the experience of the very same text or performance by differing participants along plural gradil'nts of ('xplicitnL'Ss, conscious awareness, integration/separation, fixity, interpretation, verbal exactness, and genre expectiltions. But while it remains important to insist on the specificities with which quoting is deployed - of culture, period, genre, occasion, indi vidual - yet with all the differences wc can scilfccly deny the rich creativities to which others' words and voices have been turned, rooted it seems in an impulse to bring together the old and new in th(' context of art, chained togeth('r, often enough, in the continuities of history, Here is iln astonishing resource, both in the repertOire on which the co-creators of human verbal art
8. Controlling Quotation: The Regulation of Others' Words and Voices

The power of quotation is as dreadful a weapon as any which the human intellect can forge (John Jay o,apman) How COme stealing from onc book is plagiarism. but stealing from many is rcSt'a«h? (Anon.) A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place (G"Orge Washington Carw:r)

Like any other humiln activity quoting is socially org,miscd. The practices and ideologies surrounding its use have, as we hav\.' seen, been interwoven with changing preoonceptions over who and what should be quoted, with

the recognised but varying linguistic, visual or gcstuT
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Why Do Wc Quote?

risky undertaking. This was already clear in the comments of the British obs,(>rvers. Many approved of quotation in the right circumstances, but also dL'Scribed how people quoted to show off, to annoy others, or to make unjustified claims. Quoting could be pretentious and a way of excluding others, resented if used inappropriatdy or by unauthorised people, and to be condemned if merely 'parroting' others or making free with what belonged to someone else. 'Plagiarism' above all was denounced in the strongest terms, seen as a serious menace abov(' all m lhis age of th(' internet. There is a long background to such ambivalence. Quoting has indeed been tumed to v.1lued purposes in many situations. People have used quotation to crente beilutifulliterature. gilthered wise and lovely sayings from the past, commented with insight or humour on the human condition - or on their fellows - and engilged reflectively in the processes of human living. But it illso has an ilmbiguous side, and quoting and quotiltion hilve long been su rrounded by doubts and restrictions. The terms surrounding quoting in Fig. 7.3 include negative notions Iikl' rl'gurgitation, copying, plagiarism and theft, or two-sided ones like ilpproprialion. imitation or collage, and for centuries individuals have brought out the dark .1S well as the bright side of repeating others' words. 'A fine quotation', it is said, 'is a diamond on the finger of n man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool' (Joseph Roux), and Dorothy Sayers' !'eler Wimsey famously opinL'S that 'A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought' even while lilvishly continuing to use them. Ralph Waldo Emerson not only expatiated eloquently on quotation but also asserted roundly that 'Quotation confesses inferiority' (1876: 167), and among linguists and philosophers quoting hils b~n dubbed 'a somewhat shady device' (Dilvidson 2001: 79). EVL"Il quotations collL'Ctions and their USI'~ can be ambivalent. The prefacL'S to MlICdQ/lIlel'l' Dictionary of Quolatio/ll' described in Chapter 5 noted thill quoting could be a way of showing off, Md commented on p'-'Ople's over-use of quotation in earlier periods, their 'Affl'CI
8. Controlling

Quota~ion

223

using quotations in speeches is a very ri£ky business. If they show the history of an idea, fair enough. If they are \ls~d because the speaker has not troubled to be creative in his or her own right it is fairly poor form (OUP SuTWy 2006).

Plundering others' words without attrioution is widely condemned: hence the counter-intuitive impact of shocking-sounding sentiments like Anatole France's much-quoted 'When .1 thing has been said and well s.lid, have no scruple: take It and copy It". Quoting is indubitably a powerful human activity, and has in fact long been treated as something with the potential of being used to bad no less than good purpose. Verbal expression is itself alrcildy a mighty (orce in human int"raction - and for thilt very reason subject to social r"gulation but to this is add"d the further weight of another's voie" and words. So it is scarccly surprising that the human prop('llsity to quote is matched by a propensity to regulate and restrict it. So much m,ly .1lreildy be obvious from preceding chapters. But here let me touch more directly on a few aspects of this larg" and somewhat controversial subject. Like other strong forces in social life quoting and quotation cannot be left unfettered, and through the ages have been subject to a plethora of social, ethical. aesthetic and legal constraints.

8.1. Who plants a.nd guards the flowers? Imitation, authorship and plagiarism One obvious fonn of control is guarding someone's compositions from being quoted illicitly by others. lhis is not the only arl'na for the fI'b'Ulation of quoting nor, as sometimes Sllpposed, is it Simply a question of 'luthmi'11 rights or of fully settled agreement. But it has its own importance and we can start from that. Here it is a matter not o( just any words, but of words regarded as having bel'n gathered together with a degree of art or wisdom, falling within genres classed as in some sense marked and deliberate compositions, characterised by some recognised aesthetic. intellectual and/or monetilry value and linked 10 some particular iluthor or authority. Such classifications have of course varied in differenl cultural situations; but it is striking how often apparenlly illicit quotatiol1s from certain verbal compositions have been condemned. TIll.' history of literalllf(' is strewn with accusations of wrongful quoting, often seen as the theft or counterfeiting of others' words. Classical Greek and Lalin authors wcre acruscd of stealing other writers'

224

Why Do We Quote?

glory by imitating them too closely, while more recent centuries have seen allegations of unattributed copying against innumerable authors, from the Renaissance dramatist Bl'n Jonson or Scotland's famous ninetel'nth-century bard Robbie Burns (Fig. 8.1) to leading politicians of today. Charges - and rebuttals - of plagiarism have been raised about such well-known figures as, among many others, Milton, Pope, Tennyson, Coleridgl', Wordsworth, Laurence Sterne, Edgar Alien Poe, Helen Keller, Bob Dylan, or Martin Luther King. Shakespeare too has come in for his share ("All he did was string togethl'r a lot of old, well-known quotations' supposedly said the American critic H. L. Mencken) and it is nowadays almost a modern industry to attack contemporary novelists and historians for silently incorporating others' words into their texts. Whether in manuscript culture, printed books, electronic communication or even the spoken word there has been recurrent concern about someone's verbal compositions being repeated in whole or in part by those unauthorised to do so. IN

DEFENCE OF ROBERT BURNS. THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM CONFUTED.

. .--_ -_ --._ --. ,

GEORGE BLACK.

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fig.B.l 'In DefelM'eof Robert Burns. TheChargeofptagi'¥ism Confuled',Sydney, 1901. One of the published defences of well·known authors against charges of plagiarism (©The British Library Board, YA.1995.a.20492)

8. Controlling

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225

Today we are familiar with the idea of .mthors' control over their works as being enshrined in the laws of copyright and intellectual property by which authurs bro'ldly have the legal right, with sumI' fairly minur exceptions, to prevent others from copying and quoting their words. These arc treated as privately owned property which C,lnnot be freely used by others, undl'rpinning the widely-held notion of original works as the creations of individual authors whose rights to limit their quotation by others arc indisputabk. But this is only onc way in which quoting can be curbed and control over quotable text established. The differing views and practices of literary creation in Western European history iIlu,tr,lte some of the variations in the concept of authorship and in the sanctions agilinst the repetition of others' cumpositions, intermeshed as these have been with changing literary theories, aesthetic judgements, educoltional practice. printers and sellers of books, forms of transmission, and governing iluthority. This is iln elusive and controversial tupic - predictably so given the complex issues surrounding anything to do with quoting - but il brief retrospect can put current ilrrangements and debates into som~ perspective.! Individual authurship W,lS recognised in classical Greece and Rome and literary compositions, especial!y poetry. praised for being originill. But this also went along with admir,ltion for imitation in the form of combining and re-using pre-existing milteri,ll by earlier great authurs. The image was of a common literary ilnd intellectual inheritance open for recycling: a spring from which iluthors could draw water and convert it to their own use. Writing un untried and unsung themes - unwary independent fabricatiun - risked failure while judicious borrowing from fevered litefilfy ilncestors was to be praised. The c'lpacity to gain inspiration from the iluthorities and models of the past was admired - a kind of divinl' 'rfflllmu' as Lunginus' filmous later work on elevated style WiIs to put it (Dnl/le 5lJblime, Chapters 1 The continuing debates on 'authorship', 'plagiarism' and restrictions on quotation span a wide area, including historical studi~s, educational and pedagogical discussions, copyright malters, and literary and cultural theory_ Souree~ I have found especially pertin~nt include Angelil-Carter 2000, Earthes 1977, Buranen and Roy 1999, Cue et a1. 2002, Eisner and Vicinus 200R, Foucaull 1977, Howard 1999, Madarlanc 2007, Howard and Robillard 2008, Kcwes 2002, Lunsford and Ede 1990, 1994, Ma110n 1989, Minnis 1988, rulnam 1894, Randall 2001, Scollon 1994. 1995, Skandalakis and Mirilas 2004, VVhite 1935, Woodmansec and Jaszi 1994, and On the partially overlapping - and contentious - ~ubject of copyright lknlly and Krdschmcr 200S-, British Acad"my 2006, Ccmmunia 2010, o...'azlcy et .. 1. 2010, Lessig 2004, Loewenstein 2002, MacQucen and Waelde 2004, Palterson 1968, relley 2009, 5herman and Strowell994, Vawr and lknlly 2004, Verma and Miltal2004.

226

Why Do Wc Quote?

13.14); earlier loo Plato had pictured the poel's 'divine inspiration and possession' as linked into a vast chain of previous poets in a series, ,1S it Wl're, of magnetic rings suspended frum each uther and, ultimately, from the Muses (Plato, lOll). Classical writers thus took pride in acknowledging their models and sources. Roman literature included many reproductions of Greek classics in close Latin translation, Virgil drew dirl'Ctly on Homer and Theocritus, and the Latin playwright Tercnce was one of several who recycled earlier Greek comedies. In combmmg many Greek plays into a few Latin ones, he wrotl', he was following 'the eXillTlple of good poets' and thus considered it allowable 'to do what they have done' (Terence, Prologue to Hl'alllonlimorumeno,; (Tile sdj-torml'lllor).transl. Riley 1896: 136·7). But mere word·for-word reproduction was not enough for literary acclaim. Good authors were expected to improve and reinterpret what they borrowed and many writers correspondingly made ,1 point of asserting their own claims to originality. A distinction was made - at least by some - between laudable imitation ,md servile copying, the latter regarded as a form of theft, the more so if failing to acknowledge the $OurC(', Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs staged a mock encounter behveen the tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides in the fifth century BC where the latter was charged, perhaps credibly in the audience's eyes, of wholesale plundering from others. Aristophanes in his turn was accused of quoting extensively from e,ulier comedies, and historians and philosophers tou incurred tht, chlHge of thievishly appropriating others' material for their own works. It was in the first century AD, when books wert' increasingly on sale, that a Latin poet, Ma rti ai, appaTl'ntJ y fi rst used the tenn plug iarills (' il ki dnilpper') in lhe sense of a literary thief· the long·ago root of our modern 'plagiarism'. But if classical antiquity was marked by charges of inappropriate and over-extensive quoting frum uthers' wurds this was on different lines from the later ideils of property, of publishers' rights, or of monetary recompense. The controls lay in aesthetic and ethical judgements and, ,1Jnidst the rivalry for honours, in the important issue uf an author's reputatiun. Those reckoned 10 be slavishly derivative copiers were liilbJc nol to a legal judgement initiated by an author, but to ridicule and contcmpl.2 In the mediaeval period the classical balance bdween originality ilnd imitation tipped more towards the laller. There was overwhelming reverence for alJcturitas, 'iluthority'. Whal mattered were quotations from 2 On classical authorship sce spedally Conte 1986, Conte and Most 2003, Putnam 11194, Silk 2003, White 1935.

8. Controlling

Quota~ion

227

revered ancient works (auctoritates), above all from the divinely~inspired Bible and the church fathers. The old and t.>stablished authorities were to bt.' mined and rt.'-asst.'mbled into new works, and creativity rt.'Stl'd not on individual innovation but on the discovery of some truth already there and incorporated into your own text. As Chaucer had it in the fourteenth century: Out of olde feldes, as men seyth, Cometh all this newe corn from yer to yen', And out of old bakes, in good fcyth, Comcth al this newe science that men lert' (Gecffrey Chaucer, The Parliamml of Fowls, lines 22-5). Books of approved excerpts circulated, like Thomas of Ireland's Malliplllus jllrrum or the many jlorilcgill collections (sce Chilpter 5), as did commentarit.'s on quotations from SCriptural or other authoritative sources. Though the outlook was of roUTse far from uniform and there were changes over time, in general there was less concern with individual human authors. Authorship was rooted in read and memorised texts from the vener<1ble authorities, <1ssembled together as <1 bee does when g<1thering nectar from many flowers and processing it into asingle honey - a common image. Annexing others' words accorded with the medieval idea. as Mary C<1TTuthers summarises it, of 'm
228

Why Do Wc Quote?

from which scholars hitherto had been able to secure the admiration of the common people' (Erasmus Adages 11 i 1, CWE Vol. 33: 15). Ancient modds were still admired. Sixteenth-century writers like TilSso reproduced extensive quotations from the acclaimed Greek, Latin and Italian poets, writers in England and France praised imitation of earlier great authors, and historians wove unMtributed pilSsagl'S from classical writers into their narratives. Commonplace books were composed from multiple sources, with malle,lble texts and attnbutions intermixed with the compilers· own inserts, and poets borrowed not only subjl'C1: matter but exact wording from their predecessors. The classical concept of literature as a mine from which all writers could retrieve tre,lsure continued. Indeed, as wc saw in Chapter 4, up until the eightl'Cnth century quotation marks could still Signal passages accepted as common propl'rty for olhers to use, a contrast to their 1,1ter function of fencing individually-owned words. For long it remained admirable 10 copy ancient authors, even without attribution. The eighteenth-century novelist Henry Fielding warded off charges of plagiarism in his Tom 10/l/'s on the grounds that 'The Anlients [arcl a rich Common, where every Person who hath the smallest Tenement in PanW$5115, hath a free Right to fatten his Muse', adding that he had not stolen from living authors (' wc Modems') ,1S that would be 'highly criminal and indecent' (Fielding 2005: 546). But if the notion of imitation remained central in early Rl'naissanCl' literary theory. and to an extent in later years too, there was increasing discussion of its nature and limits. Erasmus recommended imitation which does not immediatelr incorporate into its own speech any nice little feature it comes across, but transmits it to the mind for inward digestion, so that becoming part of your own system, il gives Ihe impression not of something begged from someone else, but of >omelhing that springs from your own mentai processes (Erasmus Cicl'nmimws, eWE Vol. 28: 4H). Writers were praised for th"ir individualis"d tfilIlsform<1lion of imitat"d material, and adv"rse criticisms about approprialion of oth"rs' material b"g,ln 10 circulale, expr"ssed in such mdaphors as 'robbing the hive', 'gleaning by stealth', 'stol"n goods', 'stolen feathers', a 'pickpurs{' of others' wit', 'gather"d out of other men's gardens', or 'flying with olh"rs' wings'. John Hooper's elaboration of 'Thou shalt not steal' in his Dedaralioll of Ill" Tell Holy C"mmulIlldcmcntcs (/ Allmygthye G"d in 1549 revived Martial's term for literary theft:

8. Controlling

Quota~ion

229

Here is forbidden also... the diminution of any man's fame; as when for vain glory any man attributes unto himself the wit or learning that another brain hath brought forth ... This offence ~brt[iaIJ Ill. callcth plagiuIII .. speaking of him that stole his books (Hooper 1549, in Carr 1843: 393). The term 'plagiary', anglicised from Martial's Latin, came into circulation, at first as an adjective and in time for a person who pillaged another's work by verblltiJn repetition, cspecilllly if concellling the SOUKe. Feuding writers attacked each others' compositions and defended theirown accomplishments and reputations. The concept of .luthors as 1i ving human writers with an interest in actively restricting the un,mthorised repetition of their personal compositions was incrcasinglyemerging. The dates of these devdopments remain contTOwrsial, but certainly charges ,md rebuttals of plagiarism became frequent, constantly circulating among writers - an apt conte~t for the sev{'ntccnth-century Samuel Butler's entertaining mock-defence of 'Plagiary Privateers' who 'make free Prize of what they plcase': Why should those, who pick and choose The best of all the best compose, And join it by M"sair Art, In graceful Order, Part by Part, To make the whole in Beauty suit, Not Merit as complete Repute As those, who with less Art and Pains Can do it with their native Brains? (from 5.1muc! Rotler 'Satyr upon plagiaries', in I.amar 1928, 63, 65). By the eightL'\-'nth Cl'lltury a profession of writer was becoming established, with entrepren{'u nal authors competing in an {'xpanding literary markctplaCt' and keen to restrict others' appropriation of thC'ir ideas and words. Anoth{'r dim"nsion was alsu cuming into play: th" mystique of the solitary introsJX'cti ve g{'nius produong som{'thing that had n{'v{'r existed before. This was not the only view, .md different genres to an extent involved different models of authorship. But the romantic image came to have a wide influenn-': the writer seen as S('!f-inspired rather than imitating oth{'rs, with a seemingly intrinsic right to prohibit quotation of thC'ir onginaJ and uniquely created works. Yet another strand in the mix came from thl' developing concepts o(copyright. The initial forms were not in (act directed to authorial rights, and in practiCt' copyright legislation took many twists and turns over the centuries - it was far from the smooth logical procl'SS towards some natural state of fuU authors' rights

230

Wily Do We Quote?

that is sometimes pictured. In time however it developed in such a way that authors came to havc some k'gal entitlement, if still in somewhat confused and ev{.'Tl contradictory ways, to prevent their wurks from being extensively quoted by others. By now ..uthors generally have some right during Specified and quite lengthy periods 10 prevrnt their words (with ct"rtain ,ulowed eXct"ptions) from being quoted withuut ilcknowk-dg{''Tlwnl, explicit pe~ion, and in some cases pilyment. Recognised authors are treated as ffOnon-ic owners of their wurks wllh the tight to profit from lhis personal property. Quohng does nol run free but has in this context been brought inlo the marketplace, subjl'CIed tu control by authors and publishers, and b.1Cked by law. lhis may all seem by now well-settled, rooled in Ihe notion of the indepl'ndent solo author who through some inevitable teleological development is now rightly established as the owner of the words he or she has created. lhis indeed is currently onc important b.1Sis for the control of quoting. Bul as must be clear from even this brief sketch, Ihese arrangements are neither immutilble nor unqul'Stiuned. Indeed both the pl'<-'Sent system imd the apparently established image of authorship arc now subject to sharp debate. Some arb'l.](' that the current constraints on quoting others' words arc not unly conhlsed but too restrictive ,md costly and l'Specially in this age of technological flUidity, need to be loosened. More radically; it has been urged that notions both of thc single autonomous author and of words as personal and commercially v..luable property belong only to une phase in histury. Differing assumptions within contrasting educational systems both within and oc'iwl'Cn cultures also undennine -or at least question - apparently selfevident ideas uf huw quotiltion and ..uthor attribution shuuld be dl'ployed. l Nor do all authors themselves nC'C('Ssarily eulogise the unaided solo creator, a reaction well expressed by Bertolt Brccht's fictional Herr Keuchner as he mocks write~' claims to 'write great books all un their own' where thoughts a..... only manufactured in single.perso:'l workshops ... Isu] no thought is pick-up-able and no formulation of thought is quotable. All those writers, how little their activity requires l A pen ,md some paper is all they have to show! And unassisted, only with the meagre material that a single person can carry in bare arms, they put up their cottages! They knolV no greater buildings than those which one person alone is capable of building! (Brecht 1995: 441, IransL Cheesman 20)7).

--,-----'

3 There is an extensive -ifcontroversial-literature on quoting among students and others from varying cultural backgrounds, often related to plagiarism, for example Ballard and Clanchy 1984, Bluch 2008, Casanavc 2002, ConnOT 1996, Dus:t.ak 1997, Howard and Robillard 2008, Jones et al. 2000, Panella 2001, Pennycock 1996, Scollon 1994, Suomela·Salmi and Den'in 2009.

8. Controlling Quotation

231

Further, the actual practices of written composition are more diverse than the autonomous-author image would imply. The romantic paradigm has arguably obscured the faet that in many cont..xts both nowadays and in the past collaborative writing has been as cOllunon as creation by a single individual. We sce many cases of texts produced without clearly defin..d authors, of small-group coJlaoorati'IC writing projects, and of the incorporation of peer reviewers' comments into finished texts with little or no direct signalling of their detailed provenance. Here the controls Ill' more in informally exerted colleagudy co-construction and the expected conventions of particular written genres than in individual authorial p rohi biti ons. Challenge to the image of autonomous authors has also been promoted by poststrucluralist perspecti YeS, destabilising the indi vidual fluthorifll image and positing the impossibility of flny true originality. The appropriation of pre-existing words here emerges not as some negative act of plagiarism that demands control but an on-going and necessflrY process by which texts feed unceasingly on the circulation and recirculation of words. Since in a way all is therefore quotation, controlling quotation becomes neither desirable nor. ultimatel y, possibll'. Such analyses remain controversial but deconstruction of the concepts of authorship and of plagiarism have undou btedly hdped to highlight the complexitil'S and cultural v,uiability of ideologies of literary creativity find reproduction - find. hence. of quoting and the wfly thflt it can or should be regulated. Added to this, the public space of the internet is now raising new issues flbout authorship and of what it means to create a work in this arena. The increasing experienre of interactiw and collaborative creati vity on the web undermines the concept of an individual uwning words and preventing their rc-use by others. while the 'open source' and 'copyleft' movements challenge the restrictions of copyright and encourage the free usage, sharing. and joint cn'ation and re-creation of material. In electronic settings texts also have a nUidity not found in hMd-copy print, facilitflting the free importation and interchange of verbal passages from onc site to another. Where the signalling of quotation is thought important, as in the many 'quotfltions' collections and excerpts from classic texts, this can indeed be conveyed by web-based visual signals. But equally passages that in traditional print are conventionally marked as quoted can now be merged seflmlessly during the dynamic process of soft text ((cation.

232

Wily Do We Quote?

With this bilckground the control of quotiltion is il highly topical ilnd contentious issue. For some the new technologies represent il great new oppurtunity for frw quoting, breilking thl' strilllglehuld of iluthorial and publisher restrictions. For others they portend piracy ilnd plilgiarism, undennining the established rights of authors or, alternillively; feaft"d as pfl'saging fierce new controls over pl'Ople's words. No doubt such dcbiltes will continue, ilS will the passions they arouse, for the traditional print system with Jls convenhons for attributing authorship is argunbly now being supplemented as both old and new texts are reproducl.'d illld manipuliltl-d with freedoms - and perhaps constr,lints - not avail<1ble before. None of this hns broken totally with estnblished conceptions, v.lgue and muddled as they sometimes arl.'. There are still prevailing ideologies and institutiunal arr,mgements which support individual authors' rights to control the quoting of their words by other people. Copyright clearances continue, te,lchers lecture their stud('nts about quote marks and citations, publishl.'rs enforce their hou~' styles fur presenting quoted pilssages, authors' names are attached to publications, and they and their publishers are prepared to pursue charges for copyright infringements. Authors and print publishers fight for their traditional rights even mnidst the changing communication media. And now as in the past huge numbers of printed volumes of eXC1.'rpts, collections and anthologies circulilte, working within the Cilnots imd sticks uf modern k'gislative and social arrangements. But the concept of an author and of his or her rights to guard their words against quotation by others is indeed now turning out more debatable than appeared at first sight and will without duubt continue tu attract controversy. Just who plants and gUiHds the flowers that might or might not be plucked by others remains a complex - and changing - question thilt includes, but is by nu means cunfined tu, to the constraints uf l('gally enforceable copyright.

8.2. Constraining and allowing quotation: flower or weed? The regulntion of quoting extends into other iHens too, shaped by many processes and interl'Sted partiL'S, not all obvious on the surface. For it rests not just on formal prohibition but also on sodally prescribed expectation, often taken for granted rather than explicitly arHculnled.

8. Controlling Quotation

233

One point th
Ilrohibitinll'llnUcrnstd ~ntinll of $ctiprorc: ,£iiUiJg gnobavtists. ilrprilJiDll Bl.ortitd . 4:ltt.im, 'Rniioliing ;ot. Ii ~rrkrt from 4:lilrndot 186,

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'f.UJI' Xn;(;'S i;Wn-,..o,-Ai '¥l]Efu'.,bcing'i.Notm.l'.d. Li:Jal swiaq. ,COIitkutiocll and Anister: op.ini.oo,I. bave"by Wr
and due. observ~~n of web. ~u, '.acnme.n:tab, .bu&tble ri~ and eemoom~ u ~- haveJ been UIcd -and ar:cl.lWJlUCd within the. C1iurcb, ,of Engbn~ whereof iUs bigll.nra 'if ))lSuy and 1a.wfull7 ,toW'd~ chief; and wp!CffiC head 'in: ranh. jmrrgdi~lcl, Il~ Cb:ri$tj ~g.•also ·that by ~ 01. lUndry p.ful~ed Pn9b in the English lOape that be, bJ))Ughl .from QUt;W'ard p.ans, and by lueh like booh as: have b«Q:,~~ withi:n, thiJ rcaJm. $et forth with pri~kset Plnl~injng ~nOOlation .. andaddiJinm iD. the rrt2.-giJU, ptO~ ~ eale:l)dart,Jmagi(la;l and inV=t';das wdJ by the mal:.eu,. de-vi~. and priDleJ'l of tM Ame blm.., a. by .~dry nunge. ~$ called AnabtpUwi and Sacumrntar.itt~ whkh be. la~y CiDme i:nro this reaJm. wlic:re sOme of th~m) dO rrJllain ~vi[y ~n.ah.il by some

,w.

Fig. 8.2 King Henry VIII's Proclamation prohibiting unlicensed printing. London, 1538. R~garded aSone of the key docum~nts in early copyright history this prohibikd the printmg of any book in English without the express approval of the king through his Privy Council (as reproduced in Hughes and Larkin 1964: 270)

234

Why Do We Quote!

INDEX

AVCTORVM. BT LIBRORVM. Q.VI AB OFFICIO S.-"'ClIll. & ,,~erraJi, iDquil'i.

lionb WlUj ab pnmlbllt ~ lia. vAi....,la ChnfLall" Rc p..!llia m:llldanwf, rllb renrl1. ri. (OileR I~la, Yd rtnm. taubtOll pfOhibhOl Ua b.iI.b, qu JelU ell III CCle'lla Do.

~uli. In

mini, nrrQG, & {~t. ~flpcbli,in<J.

crcto nufdeta r.tal ottlj COII'eA •

",

AVCTORES quorum libri & (cri

pt. omn~,!l: qll;ttl/n", frlb eo nlm, Yel rubleqw.dum l~lor(j flommc.".! c~gnomHlefiift:i pCIl aut tdjl,! rUllC, nlm _liemm COAWibelllur. fiuc'clfclI' tur >c~ lirul peniou conlra l\dir,loni, "el tic I\fL;IQUe dl!l'tnlllJlrl faiucrflllll pronibenlur.

!Iydeall' Cnralha. aliis lIuldrychUl HlluCtlus. Adiilla Pyrminiul GafI'uul. AdaltiW Sib:nu. AdQlphUl a,n:~, Alberou Brandcl.>~ A1benW' Dncu. Aknnder ."I.1cshll ScotuI.

A

A1maricur,

ROMAE. B X 0 F FIe I N A' S3It.1i:uu. X v.

Menf. Feb. !

S

~

,.

Alphonlus .vmili' dlcmniCCII. Ambrnliw Buurcus. Ambrolius IIIICTb«m_ Ambl"Oliw Moiban'vratiibui. ADdraJ AII/tuneri. Andtat BObfiei ClIfOlolb.dl', Andrat C=dc.r. AndJaI D~lbmu. Andte» f .. bridus chttnniCC!11 AlIdn:2 I'Ni ... Modtcuiut.

Fig. 8.3 The Roman Clllholic Churoh's lnd ...... of Prohibit...d Books, Rom..., 1559. The list was produced in successll'e editions from the si...teenth to th~ midtwentieth century. This shows the litle page and start of the list in th... pocket edition published in 1559. Inside are 65 cloS<'ly packed pag...s of prohibiled Iluthors Ilnd titles, in alphabetical order (Reproduced by permission from Houghton Library facsimile reprint, 1980. "93HR-7045, Houghton Library; Harvard University)

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The interesl of those in power in restricting the repetition of certain words and voices is to be found worldwide, at many levels, ,lnd across many settings. Censorship of writkn and at times spoken material has recurred through the centuries, exercised in various periods and contexts by - among others - church, sla\(o, local magistrates, publishers, political parties, universities, schools, and parents, one filmed example being the Catholic Church's centuries-long 'Index of Prohibited Books' (Fig. 8,3). The aims have been, variously, to control the reproduction and circuliltion of material lilbelled as seditious, scandillous, heretical, defamatory, malicious, inciting violence, immoral, unpatriotic, blasphemous, insolent, or in some other way objectionable to current authority. Such prohibitions do not alwa~ work out i1S intended by the censors, of course, for the result can be active protest, precisely through quotation of the forbiddl'n books. But they can be effective both in di rl'ct prevention and in encouraging a climate of self-censorship in people's choice of quotable material. Another factor has been the Widespread destruction of written records over the ages, from the clay tablets of Sumer or the book burning of i1ncient China, to the mass destruction of books during the Spanish Inquisition or the loss of libraries in the wars of recent times: whether accidental or, in a surprising number of cases, through deliberate and systemiltic suppression, such actions have been prevalent for millennia. Though not specifically directed against quoting as such, restrictions through censorship and destruction do indeed serve indirectly to silence certain voices and constrain the scope for the active repetition of certain words, often with fM-reaching implic<'ltions for shaping what can in practice be quoted and from what sources. 4 Common too hils been the urge to prevent people from i1cquiring i1dditional and notionally unearned status by invoking someone else's voice. Assuming another's authority by repeating their words or taking over their voice unregulated can be fraught with danger unless carefully manilged: speaking beyond your expected station - a kind of impcrsoniltion - can unsettle the established order. Whether such actions are controlled by overt regulation or rely on unspoken convention depends on the setting and on who and what is involved - il matter ilgilin not of universal rights but of social definitions and expectations. Some quoters MC indeed 4 For some recent overviews and references on censorship and the destmction of books scc Bm~z 2000, Paxton 2008, t'ctlcy 2009, Post 1998, Thomas 2008,

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authorised to do so - but on conditions, and ruled by locally sanctioned norms. Thus the Akan Speaker in Ghana WilS su bjl'ct to stringent personal requirements. In that his function was to speak thl' words of the chief he had to be 'the quintessence of moral virtues: sincerity, loyalty, probity, and selness devolion should guide his behaviour at all limes'. This was reinforced by a solemn oath carrying fatal consequences if violated (Yankah 1995: 85, 92). Similarly modern politicians taking it on themselves to speak on behalf of their party can be subjected to disciplining or public outcry if they do so without prior approval. while jou rnalists misquoting those they report sometimes escape unscathed but can also be subject to protests from Ihe original speakers, the need for public apology, even legal proceedings. To claim to quote God or speak in his name is regarded with special seriousness. One of the Bible's famous Ten Commandments (inscribed high on the Dartmoor moors in Fig. 7.2) forbids 'taking God's name in vain'. 'False prophl'ts' claiming to speak 'the words of the Lord' an' threatened with the wr<1th of God, and thosl' wrongly prophesying in Jesus' name arc to be cast out (Matthew 7: 23). The authorised rdaying of divine words from a spirit or deity is not open to just anyone. Preachers, prophl,ts .md diviners arc regularly expected to be validated by, for ex ample, lengl h y sped illist Irili ni ng or hereditilry stil tus, 0 r, altern al1 vel y, the support of approving followers or il shared belief in spirit possession or divine inspiration. Purporting to speak the words of God or to takl' on ,1 voice from the spirit world is imbued with danger and hedged with controls. Wllo is using others' words and vuices is anuther recurrent thread. Some people are freer 10 use quotations - or to quote in particul ar ways - than arc others. In certain roll's they may be eXI-ccled to quote, perhaps indeed fet>! pressurised to do so. Recall the neat, if joking, summary by onc of the British commentators that Generally SfX'aking. Ihe only people who should be allowed to quole art':

Politicians...

Preachers Lcdurers I'rl'SS officers Broadcastl'rS Newspaper colunmisls Any embrOiderer looking for a lexl for a sampler And Ihal's about it (MO/RI760).

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Those from particular social categories may be discouraged, even bann,--d, frum certain forrru; uf quoting, even while otht'rs arc applauded for doing so. the key issue often being the quoter's
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it was nalur,ll for teachers, parents and those in authority to quote proverbs at those beneath them, whereas childnm, though by no means forbidden to quote pruvt>rbs, were not so readily expt'Cted to do so. Similarly in the current worries about free access to quoting through the web it is the activities not of scholars but of 'teenagers' and 'students' thll an' most vociferously condemned (by their dders) as piracy. The initiated - the members of your in-group - are differently assessed, indeed quill' likely to aC<Juire attention and admiration for lheir quoting. Thus work produced by favoured colkagups, ewn if partly arising from cobbling together pre\'ious writing, is more likely to be assessed as 'research' than dismissed as 'plagiarism'. On the same lines writers arc more often denounced for wrongful quoting by people unsympathetic to their views. It was his politic,ll opponents who initiated the attack on Joe Biden for copying a speech from the British Labour leader Nei! Kinnock, eventuating in his withdrawal from the 1988 US Presidential campaign. Two c('nluries earlier Edw<1fd Gibbon, author of the exhaustively documented eighteenth-century History of tlrc Dcclillc allll Fall of the Roman Empirc, was accused of plagiarism and misquotation, and his work in some countries banned -the charges coming, Significantly, from clerics incensed by his alleged hostility to the Christian church, nOlilbly Henry Dilvis' acrimonious and persistent illtacks (Fig. 8.4). Or ilgilin, today's postmodernist writers asserting the right to extensive 'appropriiltion' of others' words me encouraged by some as innov"tivt, and creative. but liable to be censured for wholesale flouting of the proper rules of quotation by those who disagree with than. Here ilS so often the judgement of quoting - and its attempted regulation - is a milltcr not of objcctive measurement bUI of social reliltionships. Writers with the reputation of 'great' (in certain eyes ilt leilst) are in the same way often treilted as free from tht, restrictions exercised over olhers. Unlike 'lesser' authors thei r writing is Iabclled creati vc and authentic, even if incorporating lengthy quotations without ,lltribulion. Then' are countless remarks to this effect. Dryden wrote of Ben Jonson that 'He invades Authours like a Monarch, and what would be theft in other Poets is onc1y victory in him' (All Essa.~ of Drama/id, Por"ic, in Monk 1971: 57), and T. S. Eliot was explicit with his 'Bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better. or at least something different' (Eliot 1921: 114). Browning's retort on hearing that Tennyson was suspected of plagiarism was apparently 'Why, you might as well suspect lhe Rothschilds of picking pockets' (Tennyson

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1897 Vo!. 2: 2(4). just as the question of whether or not Coleridge was guilty of plagiarism seems to depend less on analysing his practice than un rudgements of the villue of his writing (he himself famously saw 'truth as a divine ventriloquist: I care not from whose mouth the sounds are supposed to proceed, if only the words are audible and intelligible' (Coleridge in Engell and Bate 1983: 164)), Ralph Waldo Emerson claims, with only a little exaggeration, that 'It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, thilt a man haVing once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others .1t discretiun' (Emerson 1904: 15) or, mure briefly, 'genius borrows nobly' (Emerson 1876: 170), and it could be summarily asserted in Blackwood's £diubllrsh MIISllzim in 1863 that Little wits thJt plagiarise are but pickpoc'
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fall', innocuous in itself, would in certain circumstanccs best be ilvoided. Or ngnin My wn-in-Iaw would. quote Shelley to an overburdened ched'out assistant, and not ~aJise he'd said a word out of plilce. One of Our local dwrtlcters a ~lired school.mistress/genius regularly lapses into exquisitel}' pronounced French or mediaeVilI \'ersc in totally inappropriate settings, eliciting exasperiltion all round (MO/N1592). Others observed that in·group quoting should be limited to settings within their own circle, or were themselves having to curb an inclination to quote classic writers when amongst people unsympathetic to such literature for fear of being considered pretentious. Kellett similarly stressed the importance of choosing the right circumstances and knowing your iludience: even in the 1930s there were tim...s, he accepted, when it was better not to over-emphasise antiquity or have too many allusions (Kcl1ctt 1933: 9ff.). And wc doubtless all recognise thnt certain stories, songs or jokes, how('ver well-worn in some situntions. should not be quoted in others. The problem is not quoting 'out of context' in the sense in which this phrase is sometimes used - of misapplying some originallyintended menning - but of quoting to an unreceptive audience ,lOd in unsuitable circumstnnces. This leads on to the question of who can be quoted. Here is another focus for regulation. Not just in the past but in more recent years too quoting the words of certain people h,lS bcen discourilged. cven prohibited outright - in certilin circles or contexts ,1t ilny filte - Of judged as only repeatable if safeguarded by disclaimers. like other powerful activities, quotation can be explosive. In Brendnn Francis's vivid imnge, 'A quotation in n speech, nrticle or book is like n rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority', and a British observer similarly noted that quotations 'give authority to personnl opinions. Perhnps this is the point of all quoting: we ,He involving someone else to back us up' (MO(B3227). But if this 'authority' is suspect, dangerous, or offensive, so then, dou bl y, is its quotation. Hence the distrust and sometimes outright legal ban on quoting the \\lords of, say, Adolf Hitler, heretical prcachers, rabble rouscrs, or even, at onc point, unapproved translators of the Bible with their perceived thrcat to the established ordcr. The Catholic Church's Index of prohibited books and 'Hlthors (Fig. 8.3) is an extreme example but in morc general tcrms has had many parallels. Quotations have similarly been discouraged if origino1ting from people deemed to fall

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into such ci!tegories (at various periods) as foreigners, infidels, anarchists, Jews, communists, witch-huntl'rs, agitators or (to take some recent examples) hulocaust-deniers, hale-preaching imams, ur thuse labelled 'homophobes', 'neo-Nazis', 'racists' or 'terrorists'. Other individuals arc, by contrast, widdy quoted, sometimes among specific groups at particular timl's, sometimes over Cl'nluries and nearworldwide. Confucius, Shakespeare, Mao, Churchill, Rooscvelt, Marx or, in earlier times and to an extent now too, St Augustine, Ciccro, Virgil or Plato - these are among the personages widely acclaimed as quotable. After all, 'People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Bcnjamin Franklin said it first' as David Comins put it, and, depending of course on the particular situilIion, it always sounds acceptable to attribute a quotalion to, S,ly, Gandhi, Aristotle, Mark TWilin, or, of course - and spcaall y in memorial or fami! y occasions - 'my grandmotht'[', Oscar Wilde is another such, nicely captured in Dorothy Parker's: If, with the literate, t am

Impelled to try an epigram, t never .eek to take the credit; We all aSSume that Oscar said it (parker 1928: 30}. And then there is what Nigel Rees nicdycalls 'Churchillian Drift': Whereas quotatiuns with an aputhegmatic feel arc normally ascribed to Shaw, those with a more grandiose or belligerent tone are, as if by osmosis, credited to ChurchilL All humorous remarks obviously made by a female originated, of course, with Dorothy Parker. All 'luotations in transblion, on the other hand, should be attributed to Goethe (with 'I think' obligatory) (Rees 199·1: xl. It is striking how reildily certilin revered personilges have attracted quotillions to themselves. We hilve all doubtless encountered claims like 'M y mother always said.. .', or 'To quote my late boss .. .' without necessilrily tilking them lOO literally. For personages in the public domain it goes further. The evocative 'If I nave seen a Iillle further it is by standing on the shouldl'rs of giants', regularly ascribed to Isaac Newton, had notable precursors in ilncient sources (unpacked in Merton 1965), just as many of Benjamin Franklin's famous aphorisms wen~ lifted from olhers: 'The only thing wc have 10 fear is ft'ar itsdf' had already been said in more or k'Ss the Silme words by Monlaigne in 1580, Francis Bacon in 1623, the Duke of Wellington in 1832 and Thoreau in 1851 (Pennycock 1996: 208). Such

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'misattributions' will no doubt continue to circulate. They are what these pl'rsonalities might haw said, and there is something appealing about crediting to some named hero sayings that have rung down the ages. They arc the personillitiL'S - iconic quotNS - who par cxallencc are categorised as authorised vehicles of quotation. It is not just individuals however. The customary sources for quoting, for all their striking continuities, have also mutated over the years, bringing with them impliCIt but nonetheless mfluential expectations about whom it IS and IS not welcome to quote. In the appropriate settings and genres - and L'Specially in fonnill educational and literilry contexts - certain writers ilre ilt ilny given time put forward as self-evidently ilpproved founts for quotJlion. In earlier Christian centuries, as wc have SL>('n, it was biblical sources and church iluthoritiL'S, later amplified by quotations from Greek and Latin antiquity. Long a major source for quoting, they too in time lost their dominant position. The prefaces to Macdonnel's quotation collections arc again infonnative. In 1826 thl' editor noted that thl' obligatory L,ltin quotations of earlier periods were no longer so fashionable -though he did in f,ld still include many -ilnd cited a 'modern writer' to the tunc that 'Wc ilre now freed from the yoke of pednnlry, nnd il milll may say that Envy is n tormenting p'lssion, and love nn agreeable onc, without quoting OVlD or SENECA to prove it' (Mncdonnel 1826: iv). Earlier too he hnd put forward tho:> same position: Why should we speak in a less intelligible Language, what may, as pertinently and justly. be expressed in ollr own? It is with Reason then, that, in our Days, a Man is no more reputed a Schotar for quoting Homer and Vi'gil, than he would be esteem"d a Man of Morals for NCading 'Iid/." and SCI1UIl (Richard Steele as quoted in Macdonnd 1798: IV). The successive editions of the established dictionaries of quotiltions in recent decades reflect similar continuities - and changes. Older 'classic' quotations continue to a remarkable degree, often nowadays in translation (though some Latin originills are notably hardy), but increasingly there is room for more topical <juotations from a selection of (mostly) well-known politicians, media performers ilnd celebrities. TheS(' too have joined the ranks of quotable s.ources in prominently published collections. And then there MC the changing views of where and how far spoken words arc treated as ilcceptable founts of quotntion. In some SL1tings clearly they arc, most obviously in everyday conversation or when attributed to some famous

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figure. But there have also been shifts over how far quotations originating (or thought 10 have originated) in the spoken word have been admitted into the wrillen genres of intellectual culture, well charted in the history of the novel and still a point of controversy in mol'(' recent times. The Irish playwright J. M. Synge's incorporation of stories and expressions from the Aran islanders in his plays dicited disputl'S over whl'lhef or not thl'Se were 'quotations' and how, ther('fore, his usag(' should be judged. Here as elsewhere passages which might from onc viewpoint scem quoting others' words or voices, can from another - or by different people - be accepted as merely part of fredyplunderable material. Rudyard Kipling catches this neatly: When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, He'd 'card men sing by land an' sea; An' what he thought 'e might require, 'E went an' took -the same as mel The market-girls an' fishermen, The shepherds an' the sailors, too, They 'eard old >ongs turn up again, But kep' it quiN - Same as you! They knew 'e stoic; 'e knew they knowed. They didn't tell, nor make a fuss. But winked at 'Omer down the road, An' 'e winked back - Ihe
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text. Here again it is often not a matter of overt rules but of the implicit ways in which some voices are heMd - or heard to varying degrees Md ilt diff..ring levels - but uthers remilin hidden, not ilcCl'pkd as authurised sou rces of quotilble words. As in so many other contexts, whose words and voices are to be treated as quotable, and how, is a social rather than purely literary or aesthetic question. The practice of quoting is also governed, and very effectively too, through the convcnhons of genre. These constellations of systematically related features and frameworks through which wc organise our spL'<'ch ilnd writing play d cmcial if often invisible part in stmcturing how quotatiun is used and judged by both authors and audiences. Changing ilI1d controversial as they have bt.-en over the years, genres offer potent schema5 for dealing in particular ways with the words 'llld voices of others, interwuven often enough not only with expectations about the appropriate personnel, rontent and setting but also with intert..xtual associations and hierarchies of value. Thus in some genr~>s, extensive quotation without overt Signal is or has at some time been an expected part of the art (though perhaps at th(' same time more allowable for certain practitioners or purposes than for others). In other genR>S or in different periuds lack uf attribution has ilttrnctcd widesprcild censure, while in yet others again the explidtly signalled repetition of others' words is not only acceptable but obligatory. The ancient genre of the cento, a cullilge made entirdy frum lines of other works, hild quutatiun as its f(>quired basis, while parody has been expected over the generations to foreground quotation (of a kind) in more subtle ways. The R>peated phraSt.>S and passages evident in many gl>nrl'S uf ural Md written likraturL'S, from ancient epic tu twentieth-centu ry South Slavic heroic song. arc different again, where what in some genres might look like diR'CI quotations were handled more as repeated formulilic phrases, not dl>mMding ilttribution. ML'
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Chinese historiogrilphy (Lilfleur 1999). Similarly in 1599 almost a fifth of John Hayward's history of Henry lV's reign consisted of material translated from the centurie;d~arlier Rumiln histuriiln Tacitus - criticised indL'ed by some even ilt the time but then il rdiltively estilblished format. The conventions expected for Christian sermons again both regulate the use of quotation within certain frames and th"msd ves cause disilgrt'Cment. It is cOlfunonly accepted practice to insert or allude to biblical passilges without speCific acknowledgement of the exact SOUrC(' -the audience ,11'(' expected to be familiar with the genre and the background. But thL'1'(' was also hL'ated controversy between the contending sermon-genres constructed by Puritans and Anglicans respectively in the seventeenth century, the effects to an extent continuing into the present. Anglican sermons were packed with quotations and the delibcrilte. but not usually attributed, re-use uf eMlier texts, wh(>reas the Puritans disapproved of who1l they saw as (lcrivntive sermons and instead valued improvisation and inspiration in enunciating words direct frum God (Love 2002: 154ff) - a case of the puwer of religious, ethical and theological principles, v,lried as they were, to control the definition and usage of quotation. The quiet but pervasive managing of quuting thruugh genre conventions also comes out in contemporary forms where the norm is to leave Iwmarked what writers in other genres would be blamed for not signalling. Ritual repetitions mostly gu withuut uvert quute marks ur explicit attribution; su do orally circulating jokes (except among competing professional comedians), student exam scripts quoting back memorised words from lectures, journalists' accuunts quuted ur closely paraphrased from agency reports, citations from handbooks and technical manuals in practical applications, and repetitions in indexes and - sometimes - dictionaries, referenre works and d'ltabases. On the other hilnd authors of formal acadl'mic reports in 'peer-reviewed' humanities or social science journals Me expected to make at least a show of identifying sources and demarcating the quotation of others' words by denr Signals, once again regulated by tah'n-for-granted norms of the genre. Here as in many other settings genre expedations of which wc arc often not fully conscious structure our r"Petitions of others' words, not seldom interacting with unspoken connotations about how particuliIT genres arc ranked in the hierarchy of verbal products, and of how and by whom quotation in them should be handled. What is taken to be 'proper' quotation and what is not and for whom - what is flower, what wel'(\ - is again a situational and cultural maller, not onc of obJCCtive delineation.

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Too many to recount in full, the controls over quoting thus include not only direct curbs by censorship or the deliberate exercise of authority but illso 11'ss explicit - but powl'rful - assessments of who should quotl' ilnd bl' quoted, and in what settings. Whilt counts as quoting and quotable, and how formul.lted, is filtered through particuLu cultural expectations, epistemologiL>S. hil'rarchies, ilccepted conventions .md, often l'nough, disputes over how we should deploy the words imd voices of others.

8.3. The helds where quoting grows The channels of communication that we humans have developed - spoken, written, pictorial, electronic and others - on the face of it seem tr.1llsparenl. But they too have a part in structuring how wc con figure the words and voices of ou rselves and others. Our modes of expression and, equally important, the social arrangements for organising them h'lVe their relevance for our pr,lctices of quotation. A quick sketch can illustrate some of the ways they interlock. The oral medium offers fine opportunities to signal quotation. Different filcets ilnd degrees of the complex ideils associilted with quoting are emphasised in differing languages and cultural contexts, and managed in iI series of dimensions. not least through the co-construction of meaning among speilker and other pilrticipants. And it is of course not just by linguistic means but also, as illuslr.lted in Chilpter 6, by a seril's of complex multimodal milrkers mediilted by the bodily signals by which people recognise - or sometimes wordlessly subvert - the rules of Ihe g,lme. Oral performance is a many-sided resource en.lbling someone to utll'r quoted words but ilt the very same time 10 qualify that ilcI by; for eXilmple, an apologetic or ironic tone, a wry smile or throwilwilY gesture, stralegies specially useful where then' is some sensitivity about iI quotillion's appropriateness. Words and voices that circulate orally can in some rL>specls ev,lde controls over their repetition. Voicing someone else's words is in one sense iln eilsy matter, requiring no lengthy Il'ilmed training: not 11 restricted skill, it is more or less open to anyone. In some contexts too, including the 'here and now' of the literilcy-imbued present, quotillions like jokes, ditties, proverbs or funny stories do indeed seem tu inhabit an upen ural domain outside the restrictions on print or formal writing, less easy to pin down for censoring than written products.

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But spoken quotation too is ordered, as we have seen, by the conventions at any giVcr1 time as to appropriate settings, personnd, genre features and verbal register. The live sihlation in which spoken quoting is enacted gives particular power to a present audience to directly control its expression, and the use of others' words even in infonnal interactions is governed by the expected patterns of what and whom it is allowable to quote and in what company. There can be strong moral or cvcn legal sanctions, ('special1y if the words quoted MC taken as divulging secrets, misquoting someone, uttering slandl'r, rl'peating Sl'ntiml'nts offensiVl' to authority, or infringing rights of particular creators. Prohibitions by powerful partil"S r('moved from th(' diwct scene of action might on the face of it seem indfL'Ctive to curb oral quotation but C,ln sometiml"S be buttressl'd by local abdtors and informants. Nor should on(' underl'Stimate th(' t,lcit pressures of infolTIlal mles about the kind of quoting considered inadvisable and, in consequence, of self-censorship. In the conkx! of the composition and appreciation of oral art there are sometiml's quitl' form,llly rl'cognised sanctions on repl'lition, not least where writing is relatively marginal to the process. Certain oral genres have owners - or, to be more precise, people with rights of varying kinds UVl'r thl'ir reproduction. Sometimes this is indel,d a mat1l'r of identified individual authorship. The famed Somali poets referred to in Chapter 6 composed elaborate poems to be delivered word-for-word either by themselves or by reciters who had ml'morised them verbatim. Anyone repeating them must cite the original author's name and was susceptible to challenge if not quoting accurately. In Fiji in the South Pacific, on the uther hand, thl' highly regarded dilnce·sungs (m1'ke) were crl'atl'd by ,In inspired composerspeaking words from thespirit world in trance or dream, to be captured verbatim by listeners on the spot. But the compOSitions did not rl'ach full publication until long rehearsals had taken placl' by massed choir and dancers, and then only with the authority not of the composer but of the local chief who allowed the song's reproduction. Or again peopll' soml'limes commissioned an l'xp'-'rt to compuse a song for them - and it was they, not the composer, who hdd the right to perform it. Among the Dinka of the mid-twentieth-century southern Sudan for example, individuals had their own songs, sometimes created by themselves, sometimes composed (or them by someone else: others could quote someone's persollal song infonnally but only its owner was allowed to present it formally.6 Furth"r

rcfu~nces and

discussion in I'innegan 1988: 95ff, 1992: 73ff, 2(1)7: 106ff.

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Writing provides a somewhat different set of resources. Written words have the potential to be repeated and recorded in a form more or less remuved from the imml'diate cun\l>xt, and withuut thl' pressure uf a directly present audience. With their diverse range of visual and linguistic signals for marking others' words, illustrated in Chapter 4, they ure in principle open to being copied at differl'nt times and places. But at the same time their physical and (up to a point) enduring presence renders them open to scrutiny over wider expanSt'S of hme and place, thus making them in certain respects more susceptible than the fleeting oral forms to interference from those with the wish and power to control their circulation. It is also worth repeating that the skills of writing and of reading have often, unlike oral expression, been restricted to a minority. Though there arc always many modes in which written products ar~ disseminated - private reading is only one form - and the arts of quoting by no means confined to an intell'-'Ctual and literate elite, nevertheless th(' direct manipulation of quotation in writing has in many contexts been restricted. Not all writing is the same however, and different media offer varying constraints and upporlunitil'S for reproducing and accessing the words and vuin'S of others. The clay tablets of early millennia were laburious to copy and depended on specialists for their reproduction,so the written quotation of Sumerian proverbs was inl'vilably restricted to ~mal1 numbers of skilled practitiuners. The v.lrious forms of scribal reproductiun that came in later were primarily written on more portable, if more perishable. materials. They were still timl'-consuming to create, dependent on relatively long periuds uf learning and again directly accessible unly to a minority. The papyrus rolls of earlier antiqUity were a well-used medium for capturing many classic texts in writing, but needed both hands to hold and roll while reading, precluding the easy copying we can practise today. Thl' quotation of written material did of course take place but dirl'ct copying remained an expenSive and protracted business, often the task of literate slaves rather than the authors or potential readers of the mnterial. From arou nd the second centu ry A D the codex form of book developed by the Romans was coming into circulation: folded parchment sheets stitched together along one edge. For both reading and dirl'ct copying these were easier to handle than papyrus rolls, their pages simpler to turn and rc-turn. Writing was still costly and restricted. but the practice of scribal copying of, in purticulnr, religious works bec,lmc extensive and in the middle ages vast amounts of material were reproduced

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from earlier writing and regularly revered and quoted. Scribal books circulated in large numbers, both large-scale works and collections uf quutations uf the kind described in Chapter 5, and passages were extensively copied and rearranged by monks for their pri vate devotions. Quoting in this form could be conducted in private - even in secret without complicated technology. Not that this prevented disputes over ownership. There is the famous story of the sixth-century Irish saint Columba secretly copying oul a Psalter belonging to St Finnian, only to have the copy denied him by the famous judgement 'To every cow its calf, to every book its copy' - sumetimes said to be the start of cupyright and certninly evidence of an interest in the regulation of copying. But such colourful cases aside, the laborious and skilled nature of copying and the location of many scribes within a particular religious context meant that while written quotation was indeed widely practised, its immediate manipulation was generally restricted to the minority who had access to the necessary learning. The development and spread of print technology from (in Europe) the fifteenth century raised new challenges .md opportunities. Books became cheaper and more aV
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is, or can be, quoted. The physical work itself is traceable through just one of many identical copies, any apparent infringements thus the more detectable by outside authority. In some ways, controls over quotation have become all the tighter. But at the same time the technology, while often unwieldy for individuals to handle, also enabled rapid and effective reproduction, in some situations circulating and quoted underground. The legal restrictions have also varied in different regimes and periods. There was, for example, plentiful recycling of Bntish publJcalions in America before the international cupyright agreement of the Bernl' cunvl'ntion of 1886. Macdonnel's Dictionary of Quotations with its multiple print-runs in America in the early ninC'teenth century is just onc of many examples, a proliferation in large numbers of collected quotations which would scarcely have been feasible with the slower and less accessible procedures of scribal reproduction. The technologies of the late twentieth- and e'lfly twenty-first century havl' added furth<'r twists to the social organisatiun of quoting. There arc now substantial challenges to some of the earlier controls over the established medium and institutions of print. Photocopying, faxing, word processing, emailing, self-publication in increasingly manageable fonns, and the rC«'nt spread of open-access publishing have removed many of the practical constraints on copying, facilitating a spurt in the reproduction of quut<1tions as home industry rather than specialist publication. The web and its search engines have brought new facilities for locating. reading and painlessly reproducing both short and extremely long passages and extracted quutatiuns can be pasted seamlessly intu a copyist's own documents. Quoting others' words has become both easy and popular, well evidenct'd in lengthy documents of recycled material and in tht' prolific quotations collections now un the web. It is small wonder that these enhanced technologies for extensive, easy and potentially undctectabk quoting have given rise to contradictory reactions. From om' side comes celebration of the open and shared nature of the public space of the web, where people can interact collaboratively, formulate tht'ir own routes through a near-infinite series of hyperlinks, and manipulate and «,-use existing matl'rial without the restrictivl' bonds of fixed print and traditional gatekeepers. On the other there is alarm, even outrage, about the apparently uncontrolled circulation of people's authorl'd words without ilttribution, authorisation or due rl'munnation for the author's or publisher's original work. Going along with that have been

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attempts to introduce new restrictions to cum this perceived quotation freefor-all. or at least turn it to good profit account, in thcir turn stirring feaTS uf excessivdy stringent contruls un the circulation and quoting of mMerial. Among many, the anxieties over potentially unauthorised quoting seem especially to the fore, evinced among other things in the huge preoccupation of educators with finding ways to detect and punish the unauthorised quuting allegedly bu rgcuning among students. To many in the established order words seem to have been let loose\ running out of control, no longer subject to the guardians who once policed the reproduction of hard-copy print but Iying open, unchecked and uncuniinned for just anyone to seize and repeat as they wish, It is interesting to note what a central place in this atmosphNe of unease seems to be taken by the concept and practiceof quoting. It is not, admittedly, the only focus in current debates about our newer technologies. But it is unmistakeable how often the panics circle around notions of unrestrained pl,lgiarism, issues over copyright, and the image uf people's words noating untrammelled for anyone to quote without restriction. Not for the first time, established controls over quotation are seemingly being broken ,lnd new freedoms - anarchies sume wuuld say - opt>ned up. Alongside the opportunities go those long-familiar controversies coming from many interested parties over issues of freedom and restriction, ownership, profit and authurity, and of what and whu shuuld quo\;> and be quoted, whuse voices heard and repeated. As human beings wc are no doubt fortunate in the resources we have for connecting with the words and voices of uthers. I am thinking in particular of the channels of speech and of writing (there arc others too with which they interact but let me continue to focus on the verbal). Here arc spacious fields fur uur expressiun and communicatiun - humanly cultivated fields, not limpid or neutral facts of nature. Long-continuing as they arc, we have tilled them to set particular markers on our ways with words and voices, and on how we demarcate and assign them. We have indt>(>d played with their specific features in different pl
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hidden, mechanisms for imbuing ourselves with others' words and voices - a key channel now as in the past for organising the formulation of others' wurds and voices in everyday interactiun, in rihmls, in organised verbal arts. Writing too has played a seminal role in the cultivation of others' words and voices. While often lauded as among the greatest achievements of human culture, writing might in fact never haw been developed as a medium fur marshalling human expression and communication. But it did. And given thn! fact, wc should recognise thal this particular channel, humanly reguln!ed, has had a vital role in organising our prl'Sentation of the wurds of others, iI rich resource that, with all its selectiveness and variety owr time and between different groups, has long been exploited as a medium for quotation. Through writing, quoted words have been built up and amassed in particular ways over the centuries, in part structuring how we experience others' words today. In some ways these have indeed been restricted to the learned and semi-learned elite. In others however they havl' had immensely wide reperCUSSions uver vast areas and spheres uf human endeavour, perhaps indeed more pervasive and actively cultivated than often realised. The concept of 'quoting' is in part coloUTl'd for us today by this long inheritance of the visual marks of writing and the words they have demarcatl'd and captured. And for all the cries of a revolution in communic.ltion technology; we Gmnot blink th.., strong hold that thl' written word retains on the web as in other settings - no transparent mirror but a humanly-governed social heritage with a crucial part in organising our engagl'ml'nt with uthl'rs' wurds in the here and now of our liVl'S. It is then scarcely surprising to encounter the British observers' ambivalence .,bout the merits of quotation. Behind it lies ., long history of human regulation, both uvert and implicit. Quoting can indeed be valued in artistry and ritual. in personal interaction and the many dimensions of human living. But it also draws disputes, contending demarcations, and social, legal, ethical and aesthetic sanctions for controlling and cunfining it. And these processes arc in turn entwined with social and educational hierarchies, property rights, aesthetics, literary creativity; changing technologil'S and the role of established practices and ideologies in regulating our long-sensitive human engagement with the words and voices of others.

Ill. DISTANCE AND PRESENCE

9. What Is Quotation and Why Do We Do It?

Ou r 5pe<><:h, that i" a11 ou r ulterances Ia re 1filled with others' words (M. M. Bakhtin)

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by <juolalion (Benjamin Disracli)

Qur glances at quoting in other timL'S and places throw a sharper light on the contemporary quoting patterns with which we started. Though they are by no means unifonn across all participants and sitUations, sOfficof the spccificiticsof that 'here and now' of <juoting in twenty-first century England are now clearer.

The dominant educational practices; presumption of widespread literacy; pMticular mix of media; literary genres; the tensions surrounding notions of plagimism; the uses and prohibitions of quoting and their fluid dynamic amidst changing te
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Why Do Wc Quote?

But we art' still left with a puzzle, one that the mass observers, like others, WCft' reflectively concerned with. Just what is it to draw in, and on, the words and voices of others? And why, eventually, du we quute?

9.1. So what is it? The question remains a knotty one. For if the explorations in this book have shown anything it is th,lt quotation is not a single thing. The initial impression o( clear-cut demarcation based on contrasts such as those between direct and indirect speech or the presence or absence of 'quote marks' soon dissolves, (or the nature and boundaries of quoting turn out elusive and complex. 'No onc has successfully solved what is and is not a quotation' admitted the committee preparing the Oxford Dictiullary uf Quo/aliolls' second edition fifty years ago: a question, the most recent editor adds, 'which mny still be debated today' (ODQ7 2009: xvi). This chimes well with the uncertninties o( some British mnss observers uver where quotntion stnrts nnd ends. Does repeating snatches (rom others' conversations count and 'catchwords' (rom television progrnmmes? Or is it only 'proper' quutations from the Bible or Shakespeare? Where are the boundnries of 'plagiarism'? And how far or in what sense are 'quotations' distincl from 'normal' Inngunge? Such queries are indl"Cd to the point. In some instances'quotation' may indeed be clenrly demnrcnted - bUI nol alwnys. And even when il is, there is little overn[l consensus even in one petiod lel alone across the world or the ages as to just where the boundaries ultimately lie. The many terms nuted in Chapter 7 which alone time or anolher have been used as synonymous or contiguous wilh 'quotation' nnd 'quoting' give some ide,l of its potentL11 spread (Sl'e Fig. 7.3). The notions around quotation flow into many different directions, emphases and viewpoints - nnd that is only Ihe telTIlS in one language. Thus what counts as quotation may in one setting be confined 10 authorised·as·sacred passages, in others to wurds from revered human nncestors. In others again il can be idiosyncratic fami! y sayings, quips from television comedinns or just tinges in everyday speaking. Olhers' words and vuices may be mure, ur Il>ss, explicitly Signalled and differentiated, and some kinds of repetitions ilpproved, others not - or not in particular conlexts or from particu lar speakers. Genres m,ly or milY not be expected to make play with thl' obtrusive display of pnrticular inkrsections of voices, quotation marks in diverse furms turned to variegated purposes,

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and repetitive formulaic expressions sometimes not only permitted but flaunted, while both now and over the centuries translation and parody have provoked conflicting assl'ssments. Debates over quoting ml'sh with differing understandings of what is meant in using others' words and with contending positions about who should be in conlrol. Just as what counts as reprehensible plagiarism, what as laudable imitation or originality, what as the mark of creative genius changes over the centuries, so too the objectivising of quoled words is hardly assessed in the same way by all parties even on onc occasion let alone across differing settings. Within the flow of words there can be layers of allusion or of irony, more, or less, recognised by particip,lnts, just as there mn be varying relations between what used to be called 'direct' versus 'indir.>cl' speech. And added into all this are the diversities of linguistic usage - the particular ways in which others' words and voices can be indicated - together with the changing media and technologies which hold and transmit Ihem whether al anyone time or ilCroSS the centuries. Attempts to forgeonesingledcfinition ofjllst what quoting and quolation essentially are founder on these diversities. So too do proposals to set up universally applicilble lines between what is'quotation', what surrounding text or dominant voice. Certainly for specific cultural traditions, individual genres or particular situations it makes sense to trace how others' words and voices ac(> drawn and recognised: here indeed 1'.'(> rightly rely on detailed cthnogrilphies of specific practices. But wc Cilnnot easily generaJise from such accounts. And even within the relatively agreed conventions of one particular time and place the practice of quoting St'l'ms 10 elude our forays to capture it. In short there is no uniform way that quoting and quotation arc demarcated, practised and conceptualised. [t is true that the other theme to emerge from these chapters is that the use of others' words imd voices is unmistake.lblya highly significant - and sensitive - dimension of human communication. Perhaps it is for that very reason Ihal {juoling in the cnd turns out so elusive ilnd that to offer some bounded answer to the {juestion 'what is quotation?' ilt last proves impossible. [n this impasse. one riposte might be to conclude, as indeed some have, thilt cv(rytllillg is quotation. From this perspective quoting is not a clearly separo1ted activity but a constanl Ihreild in our processes of communication more generally. All the words and phrases wc use ilnd hear were after all at some point leilrned from others; so too Me

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Why Do Wc Quote?

our repetitions and manipulations of them. We are brought back to Ralph Waldo Emerson's rightly famous assertion in his 'Quotation and originality' , Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is SO massiv<', our protest or private addition so rare and insignificant, - and this commonly on the ground of other reading or hearing. - that, in a large s.ense, one would say there is nO pUrl' originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no th....ad that is nol a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by procliVity, and by ddight, we all quote (Emerson 1876: 158). Or again we can makl' play with thl' concept of pervasive intertextuillity or rccilll Bakhtin's ringing 'Ourspecch, that is, all our ulterann.'S fareJ filled with others' words' (19&.: 89). There is much to be said for this position. There is indeed no creation from nothing, or words and voices that st,1ft from now he!\". But it is only part of the truth, and we do well not to follow such formulations too literally or comprehensively (nor indeed did Emerson or Bakhtin). Certainly they sensibly jolt us out of narrow-minded perspectives On language and literature and turn our attention to the multiply.layered quality of human intera<:tion. They also remind us yet again that the boundaril-'S of 'quoting' are nothing set in granite. But <:onflating all human communication with quoting is too simple, if only be<:ause it extends the target so widely that its wonderfully variegated texture disappears. Collapsing quoting into linguistic expression gl'nerally leaves un'lddressed our ,1warenl'SS - faint and elusive as it often isthatllot all words or voices are the same: that we do indeed, to one degree or another and in interestingly variable ways and amidst numerous twists ,md turns, actively milnipulilte the words and voices of othl'rs. It seems more reillistic to a<:ceptthat whilt we hilve is not some single phenomenon but a broad family of prilctices through which people do indeed engilge in re-sounding the words and voices of othl'rs - and themselves find this of interest and importance and deploy it in a range of different ways. This multifaceted constcllillion of human ways with others' words and voices is tapped into and conceptualisl'd in variegated forms ilCroSS diverse cultures and historical periods. Ideas ilnd practices shift around within this broad family withoutthcir being anyone inevitable paltl'rning, moulded as they are not only by current conditions but by legacies from the past, both overt and hidden. How using others' words and voices is prilctised, defined, admi red, exploited,

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manipulated and controlled is not the same in differing periods, situations, groupings, even in individual outlooks and usages. In some contexts unnoticed, in others highly exposed and sensitive, th(>fe are many paths along which voices and words 'He authorised, or banned, or selectively displayed, open to some users but not others, or battled over by contl'nding claimants. But whilt remains striking - to repeilt - is the continuing humiln prachce of somehow c,llImg in and on others' words and voices. This is fm from just a pursuit, as some have supposed, of intellechlills or ilcdaimed cultural elites. The contemporary British comment<1lors, users of prowrbs through the ages, speech-makers in remote villages, makers of commonplace books, mediaeval consulters of scriptural collections, reporters of people's conversations, enactors of rituals and literary arts, reguliltors of others' words - all have in on(' way or ,1nother exploited the processes of quoting. The absence of a culturally-n('utral d('limitation does not make our uses of others' words and voices any the l('ss interesting. There may not be some universal entity c,llled 'quotation', but there is indeed a spc<:trum of overl.lpping notions and practices. This rainbow of ,1ctions and ideologies emerges as a long-enduring set of practices that humilns in some wilyS take for granted without really noticing, in others work at, d('light in or struggle to control: a de('ply-rooted potentiality of human life.

9.2. The far and near of quoting Can we say anything further about this rainbow and how humans make plny with it? Given its variegated manifestations it should by now be no surprise that quoting cOIn be put to multipl(' uses, deployed for just about any purpose under the sun. Here too is near-unending diversity. Just as tnlk cnn be turned to an infinity of functions and settings, so too can the marshalling of others' words and voices. Let me recapitulate just a few. Quoting can be used for originality or routine; for challenging authority or for lauding it; to control or to rebd; for excluding or induding; for pilssive memorising or for brilliant extemporisation and creatively applied insight. As speech act, quoting can accomplish a multitude of things, from asserting or subverting or manipulating tradition to uplifting in s('rmon or imposing rigours on the young. Others' words and voi(('s can be called on to convey

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irony or humour, to situate wriler, speaker and character in narrative, to carry the voice of the divine, 10 bond within a group or to distance from it. Quutatiun cullectiuns can be expluited as mines or as symbuls, prizl,d by some, resented or ignored by others. Short quotes like proverbs or verses from sacred writings can resonate in the memory, interrupt an othcnvise smooth text, stir up activism, exert pressure, settle disputes, or persuade oth(>rs. In Erilsmus' image It happ<'ns (how, I cannot tell) that an idea launched like a javelin in

proverbial form strikes with sharJX'r point on the hearer's mind and leaves implanted barbs for meditation {Erasmus Adages (Introduction vii), eWE Vol. 31: 17). The insertiun of uthers' words and voices can bl' an aid to understanding, a glancing allusion to a clusler of associations, a means to capture or entrance through some memorable phrase, analogy or ilnecdote. Or it can be for self-mockery, parody, s'ltire. A passage can be set up ilS ubject for commentary or debal(>, a voice (>nacl the p(>l"Sona and wisdom of othNs beyond our current sphere. Typified words and voices can be sounded not what someone actually said but a subtle note of comment or universality through some notional ilttribution. Beauti fu I or engaging words called into service from elsewhere serve to decorate texts. The enrlier chapters have given a glimpse - only too brief - of the ilm'lzing artistries of ut hers' words, whether direct or indirect, overt or near-submerged in the consciousness. As Erasmus, again, has it to interweave adages ddtly and appropriately is to make the language as a whole glitter with sparkles from Antiquity, please uS with the colours of the art of rhetoric, gleam with jewel-like words of wisdom, and charm us with titbits of wit and humour (Erasmus Adage~ (Introduction viii), CWE VuL 31: 17-18). Yet in ulher cases such interweaving is perceived as rendering texis turgid and second-hand - al1cast to some re,lders -or, equally disapproved, a tokl'n of the show-off pedantry so decried by Ihe Brilish comml'ntatOI"S. Recognising wurds as coming from elsewhere can endow them wilh special authorily and beiluty or, equally, be a means to rejecting or disclaiming them, or of seemingly avoiding personal responSibility even as we bring them forward for notice. It can be used 10 avoid taking Ihe CH'dit - but at the same time perhaps gain it indirectly through assodation with some tr,ldilion or figure beyond oneself.

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Quoting can put something on stage, elevated as an object for the expression of some attitude to it. The 'look at me' stance in aesthetically marked genr<'s b itsdf a kind of quotntion, or nt nny rnte akin to it. Thb displnying is turned to many purposes: recognised as art, as the object of exegesis or contemplation. as something to be ridiculed or attacked. It draws attention to itself as something needing' reading in slow motion' and with 'multiple meanings' as Marjorie Garber wel! puts it in her QuotlltiolJ Mllrk~ (2003: 4, 5). Taking on others' words and voices can be for mdircrtion too. Veiled nnd metilphoricnl quotations convey others' messages and formulations in an evocative rather than explicit way, or make a point without seeming too personal about it. Thly can carry layers of meaning for some but not nil participants, as with the Afric,ID Nationnl Congress leaders' expression of rcsistance through Shah'Speare quotations rather than direct - and dangerous - words claimed as their own (Hofmeyr 2006: 259). The literary device of allusiveness can link in subtle indirect ways to other people, plnces, times, ideas - even to other dimensions of oneself. These vo1lieg,lted modes of using others' words nnd voices intersect and overlap. Multiple purposes and effects can go along together, or work out differently not only in differing timl'S and placl'S but for differing participants in the same moment. Within this bundle of usag(.'S there arc near-infinite purposes to which the human activities of quoting can be turned. We need to take good heed uf that unbounded diversity. But [wanlto gu on from that to focus on one quality of our mgagement with others' words and voices that has for me emerged strongly in this investigation. This is whntl hnvc alluded tu as the far and near ofquoting, its pnradoxical duality. In quoting in its widest sense -the interweaving of others' words and voices in our own - we do indeed evoke the past and the far removed, hear the words and voic(''S of others, set tl'Jds at a distance, luok from outside uurselves. But Illl'u, by that very act, wc brand the past with the present, capturcothers' voices into our own. draw the distant to oursclvL'S. In quoting we simultaneously enact past nnd prl'Sent, enstage both oursdvcs and othns. All linguistic action is in a sense rooted in what has gone before. But quoting is pre-eminently so. [t deploys words and voices from the past. Even a rcport of the most wcent of convers.ltions rl'hemSl'S a prior event, while other wordings go back in actuality or perception for years or centuries. Learning the 'great sayings of the past' is a recurrent element in the education of the young. and the proCesSl'S of cultural transmission from one generation to another have not seldom included an obligation to conserve and pass on the words of those

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before them. Quotations conn<'d: to the personages of the past, not just within our families and intimates, but to iconic individuals and symbols of history. Using thL'ir words is tu associate yuurself with an evocative figure uf the past. The words and voices are from the past. But to quote is not only to sce them as before ,lnd beyond, but to bring them to the present and take them to yourself. It is to insert yoursdf into the unfolding of history -or of eternity - ilnd lay claim to a part in il. Some for ~nown, On serap~ of learning dote, And think they grow immortal a~ they quote qUipped Edwllrd Young (1728, Siltire I) - slltiriclllly no doubt, but he had iI point. Quoting is at once to cilpturc voices from the pllst into the here and now, llnd to extend the present into the pllst - not immortality exactly, but iI stride over thc gap ofchronology, a touch ofcontinuJtyoutside time. It can be intimlltdy personal. as for the British observers who quoted grandparents as a way of keeping them alive in memory; but it ciln go beyond that too. It resonates through quoting from sacred texts, from grciltliterary models or from the words of some inspiring prototype. Kdlelt spoke of quotation allOWing hearers to 'recognise the old in the new' (Kellett 1933: 3), while A. L. Bccker's describes how small text~ - proverb~, semiproverbs, and cliches - are a form of speaking the past. But uttering them - even with all the controls over rh}1hm, pitch, and voice quality that music provides- is also to some extent speaking the present The~c

(B~ker

1995: 191).

A comment nearer home aptly notes how 'quotations immortillise ideas, insights and inspiration. Finding and using a quote enables us to further those ideas and insights by giving them a contemporary context' (OUr survey 20(6). In quoting more than in any fonn of communiciltivc interaction we forge a merger - of past transformed to present, present invested with the past. Thecon ju nction of fa rand nea r illso comes ou t in the distancing di mension inherent in quotation. We call on text or voice uutside the self, beyond the ephemeral interests of the passing moment. Here is an extemal voice to which the speaker or reader o( the moment conjoins their own, endowing it with the aura and tone of the other. They put another perspectiVl' on some situation - the voice of revered authority, of some universal human dilemma, of the truth in proverb, of some recollected voice - illld in doing so venture to bring that outside vision to themst'lves. Quoting can give

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speaker and Iislcner a stance outside the quoted words. looking in from the outside. Here, some would say, is that key act of objectifying that ennbled the scientific revolution or, for others, the great cummentaries on literary and religious texts or the enduring human power to see themselves from the outside. Here too lie the possibilities of parody, of mockery, of critique, cuntemplntion, challenge. Chunks of words can be isulated - more, or koss - away from the flow of action, set up for reflection or play, detached from the spenking or writing self. Yet that ligature too remains dual. Thl" distancing in turn draws the quuted voice and text near, seizing and judging it: stnnding b'lck not just to externnlise but to c1nim the right to hold an nttitude to it, whether of approval, caution, admiration, disavowal, analysis, interpretation, irony, reference... The words may indeed be torn from their earlier setting and stnnd as if independent and timeless. But quoting is to re-ennct them in another present. Something new is created, a &esh modulation and presence that is <11 the same time luaded with that older voice. Here is the key dynamic and tension within the dispnrate yet recurrent threads of quotation. Quoting in its infinity of manifestations is at once 'there and aW'ly' and 'here and now'. It is both tu distinguish the words and voices of others and to make them our own, both distancing and cl,liming. This is the background too to the conjunction between 'text' and 'voice'. Cuming frum different wings uf 1inguistic~literary analysis one or the other concept has often been to thl' fore. They capture different elements, true, but can equally be seen as complementary dimensions uf human expression. [n the context uf quoting they wurk inextric'lbly together, mutually interdependent sides of the same coin. For quoting is not just regurgitating chunks of text or kel'ping them on library shelves but taking them to your own vuice and in that act declaring a perspective on them. In quotin& words and voice by necessity interfuse. Text lakes on the voice(s) of its users as they reframe it in the recontextualised moment, whether as speakers, readers, creators, transmittNs, audiences. The quoted -transformed -words cannot avoid their enactor's voice: of approval, irony, awe, slllire, affec.tion, even the hands-off stance of 'no comment' which itself voices a position. Quoting above all nwlds voice and word. It is more than a physical sounding, vocalised or other -though that is onc aspect - more than just' a voice', more than a text of words on pnge, Its dual nature means al once matter gleaned from anoth."r's harvest in the actual or perceived past beyond yourself, and its present garnering to your own.

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Here then is the enchanted transformation of quoting - at once now and past, here and distant, sdf and other, near and far, the same and not the same. [n quoting we sound nut just uur own vuices but thuse that went before, sometimes far distant, sometimes nearby but still with that stance of looking in on us from outside and in turn being regarded and answered back. Whether or not wc are fully aWi!fe of it - for it may be only the gentlest of echoes - quoting calls the external and distant into the immediate moment. Through quoting wc sing a co-created pOlyphony of words and voices that are ours and not ours, past and not-past, mingling while standing back, both presence and beyond presence.

9.3. Why quote? Amidst the many things to be said about quoting we have still reached no single answer as to why we do it. With this infinity of reasons for using others' words and voices perhaps in the end it makes little sense to seck some gmeral explanation. [t is surdy unrealistic to stay with that thin modd of language which sees it as at root referential and cognitive, with quoting, together with poetic or allusive diction, separated off as some special 'non-standard' modification that needs justification. Rather, I would argue, quoting with its multiple ramifications should be seen not as some separate add--on thing for which we want a special explanation, but as something as nonnal as any other facet of language. Our forms of expression Me to be understood as.1 fabric that we weave together, shot through with many glints; less a series uf single notes than of multistranded chords in many registers, a chorus of past and present. And here again voice and text come together, where we take the words of others to ourst'!ves, and our own words sound with thl' voices of those who fonned and heard and implicitly commented on those words both now .md in the past. So ultimately what finally emergl'S from this investigation is what [ might term the !Jm>tillgne.,s, both overt ;lnd hidden, of human expression. The interpl.1y of overL1pping voices and viewpoints that we work with mure, ur lt'Ss, diffl'rentiated, more, ur !l'Ss, explicit, more, or lt'Ss, brightly colou red - is a perpetual rather than secondary dimension of human li ving. Why then do we quote? Sometimes, as we saw in Chapter 8, there are indL'ed reasons against it. Like other human actions it is constrainl'd as well as facilitated in its particular social and histurical settings. But in

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the end - why /lot? There is no need to sed: further for some generalised justificMion. For engaging with the multiple potcntinls of quoting is how w.. liv.. our lives, how Wl' variously connect with others and with ourselves, with our past and our present.

Appendix 1. Quoting the Academics

This appendix provides the occasion for inserting some of the ponderous academic quoliltion and allusiun ..xpected in an i1cademic monugrilph. [

didn't include much of this in the opening chnptcrs, preferring to gd into some specific examples before boring on about my knowledge of c.ulier schularship. But given the quoting rl'quirements of this kind of scholarly text I don't quite have the nerve 10 omit it ill together. Quotation furthermore pervades academic prose and lies at the heart of the so-called 'literature review'. It is doubly appropriate therefure to offer some discussion - and

exemplification - of it here. Here then I c1aboriltc on words and voices that J have called into play in this volume and, following that, reflect briefly on this genre of 'quotingful writing' and my participation in it. My llim is 10 supplement the cililtions in lhe chapter footnoles - lypical feilture of ac.1dcmic quoting - by tlllking more directly about huw I have myself used quuting, both direct and allusive. I propose, as Austin nicely pUI it of the words performing mnrriage (1962: 6), not [ust to 'report' on this quoting-genre but to 'indulge' in it.

Background to this study: citing the authorities Let me attempt, then, to relate my own path to lhat of the multiple others in the fields of scholarship whert' [ have be('(l walking, and do my own bit of quoting. Starting this way is to follow an academic fashion common in many humanities .1nd soci1l1 science monographs todlly of doing something to revelll my own pnsonal stance and working procedures. l This approach 1 On this

~

for example Atkinson et al. 2003, Coffey 1999, Collins and Cal1inal

2010, Hertz 1997.

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is in part based on particular research epistemologies, especially in relation to ethnographic work. in part perhaps a confessional-sounding and not altogether disingenuous bid to grab the r(,ilder's iltkntion. More s('riously it represents a responsibility to expose commitments and mechanisms that in other eras might have been decently concealed. and a self-reflective attempt to idl'ntify the writ('r's own voice and participiltion as it interacts with others. The personal note in the opening sections of this book, cspooally the Preface and Prdude, accords with thnt tradition. 50 too does thl' ordl'ring of this appendix. So - my own university experience was first in .:Iassical studies (Latin and Greek), to which I am tosome extent returning in this volume and which has l'ncouraged a lifl'long interest in language, in literature and in history. Later / turned milinly to social anthropology, adding a more social science, present-focused and, perhaps, critical orientation to my earlier humanistic studies, and gaining the anthropologist's l'xperience of both ethnographiC fieldwork and comparative cross-cultural study. My own publications have been consistently inspired by these overlapping and transdisciplinary litl'rary, historic.ll and anthropological backgrounds. This volume is no exception. It is not so unusual in its bl\lrring of disciplinary bound.,ries, an increasing trend, perhaps, in the lilSt quarter of a century where, as a recent handbook well puts it, 'the social and poliCy sciences and the humanities an' drawing .:loser together in a mutual focus on an interpretive qualit.ltivl' approach to research and theory' (Denzin and Lincoln 2005: ix). Within that general orientation however the particular trajectory taken here is singu lar to this volume, bringing together as it does a down-to-e.lrth ilccount of people's contemporary quoting with an exploration of the comparative and historicill b.lckground thllllies behind it. From this personal grounding I found, as explained in the Prl'tilce, that I was indeed interested in quoting and starting to be aware of its many ramific.ltions. In some ways a vast literature surrounds it (some aspects captml'd in Hebel's extensive bibliography, /989). Quotiltions and their collecting attract huge interest. it seems, and both publishers and private enthusiasts produce a constant stream of compilations and commentaries (see discussion and footnotes in Chapter 5). Spl'Cific quotations have drawn fascinated attention, and there is a proliferating cm"pI/S of work on proverbs (Mieder 1982-, 2004a). A series of literary, historical and anthropological studies have examined aspects of the use or collection of quotiltions in particular places or periods (sec foolnotes Chapters 4-8),

Appendix 1 linguists and philosophers engaged in some highly technical

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(mostly sidestepped here but sec Chapter 4 footnotes), literary and cultural scholars dcvdoped a variety of approaches to allusion, citation or creativity (footnotes Chapters 7 and 8), and the topics of interlextuality, originr thoS\' labels -would have been intensely relevant.! Even those that did pursue it often stayed with grammatical technicalities or pedagogical rulings, treate
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Something the same thing happens in James Gt'ary's appealing The World ill a Pllrlt.<e. A Brief Histor.lI [if the Aphorism (2005). This is a popular celebratiun uf aphurisms by a self~styled' aphurism addict'; well-informed, full of insights and entertainingly presented, but not really a 'history'. Marjorie Garber's Quotatiml Marks (2003) has a wonderfully illuminating first and, in part, second chapter on quote marks and quotations which started me thinking but after that does not get directly into the kind of issues covered here. Christopher Ricks' Allusioll to tlU! Puets (2002) too, an authoritative and inspiring analysis and exemplification of allusiun / quutatiun in English literature and central to Chapter 7, again has little on other aspects, while Antoine Compagnon's unfairly neglected La seconde mail!, 011 le travail de la citation (1979), though overlapping with sume of the ground here, again, as with Cerard Genette's reflections on hypertextuality in Palimpsestcs (1982), takL'S a more literary nnd nbstract path. Willis Coth [{egier's readable and well-documented QU(J/ol(lSY (2010), published as this book gues to press, does indeed tacklL' some uf the issues explored here, not least in its nccount of quotation collections (pleasingly overlapping with that here) and in its perceptive and witty comments on sumI' ways peuple have USL>d quotatiuns. But again the copiOUS and alluring quotations provide the foreground. They arc predominantly drawn from high-culture literary sources, and there is little treatment of the 'here and now' uf everyd'lY use and its background. Myown ilpproach stilrted in part from similar enthusiilsm for the literilry texts. But it was also driven by a curiosity about how ordinary people-not just the great n,lmes of the past - were ilctually practising and thinking ilbout quoting and quotiltions todny: no doubt a typical question from an ilnthropologist. This led to the ethnographiC focus of the earlier chilpters, building on the now established tradition of the ethnugraphy of speaking, writing ilIld communication with its focus on close contextualised studies of everydilY practices. J I use the word 'clhnography' C'l11tiously here for though of course a well-established research term it is ilt the Silme time somewhat slippery.4 It still basically indicates a systematic in-depth study of actual practice, 3 See for example Barber 2006, Barton and Hamilton 199:'1, Basso 1989, Bauman and Sherzcr 1989, Boyarin 1993, Heath 1983, Hymes 1964, 1977, Jones and Schieffelin 2009, Sherzer 1983, Shuman 1999, Stred 1993. 4 Amidst the large literature on this sce for example Atkinson et al. 200.3, Bryman 2008: 400ff, Davies 200II, o..,nzin and Lincoln 2005: Preface, Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, Madden 2010, ,md, on case studies, Ragin and Becker 1992, Stake 2005,

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contextualised at some particular time and place, but its meanings have shifted over the }'C'ars, The traditional anthropological model of my own first experil'nce pichJred a hulistic study based on prolonged and intensive firsthand participant observation overseas, prototypically by a Single isol.1ted researcher bringing back authoritative results to scholars at home. Nowadays with the risl' of' applied anthropology' ,md fieldwork 'at hume', more light-tourn ilnd collaborative approach(>s have been emerging, often involving shorter more focused studies of particular topiCS and a wider range of methods, among them the development of one or more detailed case studies. There is also more inter(>st than in the past in highlighting the researcher's own particip,ltion in the research, often accompanied by ex\l>nsive self-critical treatments of that experience: 'experimental, r(>fll'xive ways of writing first-person ethnogrilphic texis are now commonplac(>' (Denzin and Lincoln 2005: x), My own ilpproilch here, though certainly in some ways personal, does not go to the full reflexive ilnd confl'ssional extremes. It does how"ver filll in with the' somewhat thinner sense uf 'cthnogrilphy' current nowadays that allovvs for less lengthy personal immersion in systematic 'field' research than in the traditional mode while still retaining a focus on .1 close study of people and their activities ,1t il more or less limited time and place, The ethnographiC dimension hen.> therefore was based in part on my personnl l'xperience nnd observation. This is by nuw a familiar stratl'gy. But it was less usunl in its strategy of involving 200 or so other participant observers, and building on their experience and observations too. These were the vulunteer contributurs from the Mass Observatiun pimel of writers described in Chapter 2 and further listed in Appendix 2 - themselves both 'natives' and 'ethnographers'. Their responses to the open-ended set of loosely stnlctured trigger questions (thl' 'dircctivc') thnt I sent out in autumn 2006 supplemented, extended and chnllenged my own input. To an extent it was already a dialogue for they were writing in terms set partly by me, partly by the vocnbulariL'5 and rl'SOure"s of the time. They Wl'r" nlso writing, as was their practice, with personal candour and with reflectiveness as well as obscrviltion, and came up with many things I hil
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own understanding, and are extensively quoted in this book. Though in some circles still somewhat controversial. there is now substantilectronic exchanges on such isslh..'s as 'representiltivenl'Ss' as
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vocabulary of 'informants' or 'subjects' to 'colleagues' and 'consultants' or, at least, to individuals rather than statistical units, and individuals whose personal vuices an' worth hearing. And though thl' names of thl'sl' British comment
Sh('rid~n

1996.

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them listed in footnotes. After the more ethnographic Part I, later chapters delve among other things into the history of quolJtion marks (Chapter 4) which leads to such areas as the histury of typography, sCripts and books, as well as aspects of sociolinguistics and of cultural and literary history, Ch,'pter 5 gets involved in lexicography as well a;;, again, literary history and work on spL'<:ific quotation cumpilJlions, Chapter 6 in isslws of orality and literacy, perfonnance, paremiology, and auditory and visual communication. Chapter 7 III literary theory and metoTic, espeCially to do with allusion, narratology, genre and - as in other chapters - a series of specific cases based on the wonderful specialist studies which abound in this area. Chapter 8 takes up questions around the concepts and history of authorship, plagiarism and copyright. the exercise of power, and the relevance to quuting of specific cummunicatiun te<:hnologics, an aren., above all where humanities and social sciences meet. Picking my way through this swirl of heterogeneous topics and appruaches, I particularly drew on the syndrume of scholarship where al!tural anthropology, folklore, literilture. cultural studies and perfonnance studies intersect. The general pNspectivc here could be said to fall broildly within the pragmatist traditiun that has tuuchL'd many disciplines, here in pilrticu lar an approilch to l'lnguage that turns the spotlight not on formal features but un human rjse~ of language in context. With foundations in the pragmatist bent uf earliL'r schulars like John Dewey or Kenneth Burke, anthropologists like Franz Boas and Bronislaw Ma.linowski, ilnd J. L. Austin's philosophical theory of speech acts and performati\'e ulteriUlces, pragmatiCS is by now a rc<:ugnised field within studies uf languagL'? Though not all scholars necessarily align themselves with this particular tenninology, il recent summary is right to draw altention to the intrinsically interdisciplinary perspective shaping this general stance, characterising it as 'an approach to language which tilkes into account the full complexity of its cognitive, social and cultural (i.e. meaningful) functioning in the lives of human beings' (Verschueren 2009: 19). This ilction- and context-oriented perspectiveon langu9. also background in Clark 1996, Harris 1998.

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- it extends to both 'ordinary' and 'literary' language. Laying less stress on either linguistic and grammatical tl'chnicalities or the fOrmillist and structuralist approachL"S to text, it has turned scholars' eyes rather tuwards process and context and, beyond this, to the role of multiple participants and voices in the actual practices of communication - something which demands study in specific cultural and historical rcalis'ltion rather than in abstract, judgemental or universalising terms. It takes us beyond a limited canon of texts recognised by elite scholars into how people arc actually acting - perfurming and entextualising - in more popular forms too and in the present of everyday living. The pragmatist concern with words used in the context of action rather than with langJ.mge as an llbstract, primarily cognitive or somehow independent systl'm has helped to shapl' the account here. One thread in this general flpproach has been especially infIuL'ntial for this volume. This is the unfolding perspective associated with linguistic flnthropulogy - so-called for short but in practice a nutably interdisciplinary set of endeavours extending across literary and the.1lrc studies ilS well ilS sociolinguistics, folklore and art. Lts basic ilSsumption, well summarised by Alessandro Duranti, is that 'to understand the meaning oflinguistic messagL'S onc must study them within the contexts in which they arc produced and interpTl'ted' (Duranti 21Xl9: 31). He notes too the shift, evident since the 1960s, 'from an interest in what language encodes (reference, denotatiun) to what language does (performance)' (Duranti 2009: 32: for further overviews SL'C also Duranti 1997, 2(04). A signal move was the so-called 'breakthrough into performance' first enunciated in anthropulogy and fulklore. s By now this has pervaded many disciplines, a highly productive strand running across literary; cultural ilnd sociolinguistic studies ,lnd also crystalliSing in the now established field of performance studies (Schcchner 20(6). It signalled a brenk with a prime focus on fixed text and chflllenged the once taken-for-granted modd of literary works as self-contained decontextualised entities. Scholars working from this orientation have produced a series of illuminating insights into, for example, reflexive Iflnguflgc, dialogism, intertextuality and genre.? Between them they have provided much of the 8 Notably in Bauman 1977, Bauman and Sherz~r 1989, Ben-Amos and Goldstein 1975, Hymes 1975, 1977. 9 For example Bauman 2004, Bauman and Briggs 1990, Duranli 2001, Duranti and Goodwin 1992, Hanks 1996, Hill and Irvine 1993, Hymcs 1996, Luey 1993,

Mannheim and Tedlock 1995, Schicffelin 2007, Silverslein and Urban 1996, Urban 1991.

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inspiration for this study. Lt't me highlight in particular the impressive cross-cultural collection Respoll.
openly introduced and dearly demarcated (in quotation marks). Echoes of the ch~nge of speech subjects and their dialogic~1 intcrrel~tions can be heard clearly here. But any utterance, when it is studied in greater depth, .. rc"eals to us many half-concealed Or comp:ctdy concealcd words of others with v~rring de~rees of foreignness ... furrowed with distant ~nd bar...ly audible echoes (Bakhtin 1986: 93). On similar lim'S Erving Goffrnan too has well illerted us to the complex and multisided role of others' words in th... enstilging of everyday life and the diverse- forms of specrh within it

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Words we speak are often not our own, at least not our current 'own'... Wc can as handily "Iuote another (directly or indirectly) as we can say something in our own name... Oc<:ply incorporated into the nature of talk are the fundamental reguirem{'nts of theatricality (Goffman 1981: 3, 4). Though [ have not adopted their detailed terminology, it will no doubt be obvious that insights from the work of both I:lakhtin and Goffman, and their followers, have inspired much of the persp~·ctive here. Within this congeries of approaches to the significance of context, of multiple voicL'S and of language as action, the perspectives going under the label of 'postmodemism' have plilyed iI pilrt, int(>racting with other on-going studies and debates. Their relevance for this volume includes their encouragement for unpacking often to'lkcn-for-grantcd concepts like authorship or plagiarism, setting thl'm in historicill pl'rspective as socially constructed and changl'abll' concepts rathl'r than nl'utral facts in their own right. IO In this book, as pcrhaps most often within the bro,ld sl't of approaches I have sketchcd hL'fC, thcy tl'nd to surface not in their hilly fledged and sometimes obscurantist terms, far less as positing soml' generillised 'postmodern condition', but in thc more moderate scnsc - not in fact peculiar to sdf-styll'd postmodcmists . of questioning l'thnoccntric, essL'ntialist imd elitist assumptions and highlighting multiplicity. A further twist in current approaches is that a contextual and action-based pen;pL'Ciive on Ist in tl'xluality. Thl' focus in this context has most often been not on tl'xt as autonomous entity but on its human handling: how circulated, formulatcd, continued (or not), COl1l'ctL.od, e\'i1lu'ltcd, activilted, proces5Lod, contrulll>d. This has meilnt looking beyond the CllilchnenlS of indi \'iduals at a given time or place or the ephemerality of particular sfX'CCh acts or pcrfonnanccs, to \'lke account of how people deal with the L'flduring qualitilS of verbal text. Among scholms in the pl'rfonnance studies tr'ldition too !heT(> has been a growing interest in thl' workings of text - rntcxtualisntion, textualily; textual boundaries, mctntextuality. intertcxtualityi1nd on thc 'soml'thing' by virtue of which perfonnance itsel f is more than just the enacted moment" As Lmlri Honko puIS it, a perfonnance 'can IJl' undelStood only against n bronder SpcctrlUTl of performances of the s,une inte",'cr in similiu and diffcrcnt contexts' (Honko 2OXI: 13). Ewn in oral settings whcl"(> muJtimodal enactml'nt is in onc way of the lSsence 10 &-e in particular Burancn and Ruy 1999, WooC:manscc and Jaszi 1994, 11 See for example Barber 2003, 2007, Bauman nnd BJiggs 1990, Hnnks 1989, Silverst{'in and Urban 1996.

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the evan~scent, mom~ntary performance can none the less be regarded as something abstracted or detached from the flow of e'"eryday discourse. We have begun to Iry to sce how work goes into con,tituting or"l genres as som~thing capable of ~petition, evaluation and ex~gesis - that is, something that can be treated as the objl!Ct of commentary - by the communities that produce them, ;\fld no! just by the collector or ethnographer (B"rber 2003: 325). The valuable focus on process ,md performance is thus now being complemented by a renewed awareness of the ways that textualities do not at1er all exist solely in the vanishing moment. They can also be treated as in some sense existent in their own right, potentially dctilchable objects for reference and comment - and quoting. This gives a background to this volume's interest in textual formations repeated over centuries. in the continuity of quotation collections, and in the lasting potential of written text and the genre conventions that give it fonn. These are in some sense concrctised, not iust process but product: a product th, 312) wc need to add that quoting in a way stands away from the action -or, rather, that its mode of action can sometimes lie precisely in its dist
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taken howewr is my own in its selection of specific aspects to both exemplify through limited case studies and follow through (howeV('r sketchily) owr what sometimes amounts to a lengthy timescale. This strategy naturally has its difficulties. The volume does indeed consider certain historiC.ll antecedents both for their general relevance for quoting and quotation and as indicating somdhing of the foundatiuns fur the present. But the human experience of quoting through the millennia is of course vast, and Unimaginably diverse. This volume does not - cannot - attempt soml' systl'matic chronological narrative of quoting through the ages even in the 'west", f.lr less wurldwide. Nor does it follow up some of the possible routes thnt cOlj/d be taken to investigating its history (speculations about its evolutionary deV('lopml'nt for instance), or offer a detailed account of tupics that might be accounted relevant such as the histury of copyright (though some aspects arc touched on in Ch'lpter 8 and its footnotes) or the intriguing history of the footnote (on which sce Grafton 1999). Rather this accuunt takes .1 Singular routl' through certain selected issu\'s (bruadly those delineated in the chapter he,ldings). It has fed on the prolific texts now available in print and on the web, and on a series of illuminating studies by othersY With their help it has turned an eye on a selectiun uf caSl..'5 and examples - small in number and in size, but revealing. I believe, of processes and diV('rsities surrounding quoting and quotation. Onl' final point here. While this volume is undoubtedly cuncemN! with changes Md diversities and with people's rccontextualisations in the contrasting specificities of time and place let me repeat th
Academics quoting As well as providing a neilr.obligiltory component in a proper academic monograph, the remilrks above offer a furl her eXilmple of the use of quoting. The ac.ldemic genre illustrated in the preceding sl>ction - as, up to 13 Notable among them haw been I.lenedict 1996, Carruthers 1990, Conte 19116, Howard 1999, Kewes 2002, LelUlard 1991, Mcrt()n 1965, MilUlis 1988, Moss 1996,

I'arkes 1992, l'utnam 1894, RandalJ 200], Rouse and Rouse 1979, Sh"rzer 1990, While 1935, Woodmansee andJaszi 1994, Y
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a point, in the book as 11 whole - is an example of 11 widely activated frame for quotation in contempor1Hy writing. It is a genre therefoH' that deserves sume furthl'r commentary in a vulume devoted to the subject uf quotation. Here the words and voices of others ostentatiously interpenetrate the text. It is not iust quoting in the sense of the oVC'rtly signalled repetition of others' words - though that is common enough - but also extensive calling in of ut hers' voices through references to their opinions, shorthand citations of titles, and allusions to be picked up by those in the know. Others' words and voices are deployed through a recognised apparatus which includes the overlapping mechanisms of direct quotation in the text, oblique paraphrase and allusions through citations and Rferences; footnotes too provide a home for much of this (illustrated in the footnotes both h\'fe and in the earlier chapters). Found in its most marked form as an opening chapter in academic monographs or a section labelled 'literature review' in dissertations and reports but also to an extent perv.lding acad('mic writing in gen(>fal this may be as much a cluster of genre conventiuns as a single unitary type; there arc certainly discipline and contextual diversities (see for example Bazerman 1988: esp. 18ft, Lea and Stierer 2000, Suomela-Salvi and Dervin 2009). But the general characteristics of this quoting genre have enough in common for some general comment on its most prominent features. It is a style of writing - cit
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carell'ss tokenism, and in doing so configures his or hl'r own voice. The choice of authors for citation signals not just a gl'neral adherence to the wurld uf scholarship ur to a particular disciplinl', but which tradition and approilch within this is being espoused. In doing so it sounds ilnd defines the writer's own voice. As Ron Scollon put it (another apt quotation) The way we reference the writings of others is only partly a question of establishing the ownership of wordings :that is, a question of correct attribution): It IS also a slgmficant as~ct of estabhshing the authorial sdf of the quoting writer (ScoJlon 1994: 35). The dOll ble or multi voiced text thilt results represents a familiar enough dimension of quoting. A quoter speaks both in others' voices and in the quoter's own. This polyphony has a peculiilr significance in the academic quoting gl'nre for here the quoter's own voice must among other things be thilt of 'the scholarly "I''' (Baynham 1999). The writer is set into the historicill sweep of knowledge in multivoiC<:'d dialogue with earlier scholars, expected not only 10 bring those earlier voices on stage but nt the same time to speak in revelation of his or her own relationship to them. This can be to challenge and distance them. Or it can be - ilnd often is - to identify with them in whole or in part. [t C,ln be to dissociate the quoter diTl'ctly or indirectly from certain others and their opinions and thus be absolved from bci ng classed with them, or alternatively, perhaps ill the same time, to claim alliance with them and to bc going forward with their blessing. This mode of quoting thus provides the opportunity to acknowledge previous writers, give il bilckground to what is already known or debated about the subject under discussion (its 'literat\lre'), and locate the author in relation to that literature. Despite diversities ,1CroSS disciplines and a degree of confusion about which purposes arc primary, there is indeed a widely accepted rationale framing the continuance of this quoting genre in the academic context, learned and emulated by student \ cumulath'e enterprises. None of us invent it all from scratch when we sit down to write. We depend on our predecessors. We couldn"! do our work

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if we didnl use their methods, results, and ideas. Few people would be interested in our results if we didn't indicate some relationship between them and what others have said and done before us (lk-.:ker 1986: 140).

As with olher fOnTls of quoting this particular genre can be turned 10 manifold purposes not overtly acknowledged in the explicit rationale. [t is partly a matter of taken-for-granted presentation - the expected artistry. Quotallons can be a neat way of breakIng up dense pl1nt: (or some readers more likely to leap off the page than the main text, for others something to be skipped, but at any r,lte looking good on the p
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by undergoing s~dalized training: one ~maL"s a historian, as one l\'mains a dentist, if one's work recdv"s the approval of one's teachers, one's peers, and, above all, onc's readers (or onc's patients). Leaming to make footnotes is part of this modem version of app~nticeship (Grafton 1999: 5). Being taught how to wield 'the sacred footnotc' can be sccn as part of the 'ancestor worship' of modem life: 'its Sl'Crets... -lhe details of form, style, etiquette and sensitivity to proper occasion -lire tran~m.itted within the course of higher education' (Lincoln 1977: 155). By such me<;hanisms identity in academic contexts is 'constructed in part through the sod,lIly situated practice of writing' (Casanavt' 2002: 14). Using the appropriate quoting conventions is now a recogniscd route and a condition for accessing and retaining membership of the scholarly community. Utilising theSe quotel'ul textual practices is not only to play the amk'fllfJOrary academic game but to daim member.:;hip of ,1 profession assessed among its adherents,lSOfhigh and valued st,meting: mthcr likeasecrctsociety dedicated.among uther things totheprescrvatiun and USI' ufthl' 'proper ritual fotnlulac' (Lincoln 1977: 155). It deploys a shared language that brings insider.:; together and, whether or not deliberately. keeps out others. Th(> polyphoniC construction of ocad..>rnic prose Canil'S a rTll.'SS.."Ige nut unly about the author's positiun but that 'they are ur want to be part of a rommunity' (Rottum 2009: 120). Shirley Rose puts it mo~ strongly: citation practice is more than a maller of selective guotation, fluent paraphrase, accurate summary; avoidrmce of plagi;"ism and p~cise punctuation. It is an act of building community; collaboratl\~ly constructing shared knowledge.. [through] rituals of love and courtship that work 10 create group cohesion in academic disciplines (Rose 1996: 45). C~dibk

And to thOSe who would query thc terms 'love and courtship' in this context, she would reply that they would surely ring true for those students nnd other outsiders 'longing for the embrace of the disciplinary community' as wdl as to the teachers whose role positions them at the g,lte, 'empowered to grant or withhold aCcess to that embrace' (Rose 1996: 45). The specific words ,lnd voices chosen for quotation also lead to identification wi/hill the ,1cad e mic world. For, whether thc choice is from famed Latin authors, notable sociological theorists or today's mass observers, they pinpoint the particular scholarly tradition with which the writer is proclaiming identity. Declaring membership of theSe ·socio· rhetoriCal discourse communities', as they have been termed (Duszak 1997, Swnles 1990), is to side with some voices by repeating or positively

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invoking tnem, wnile signalling division from others by direct critique or silent exclusion. As Berkenkotter ,1nd Huckin have it (1993), 'You are what yuu cite'. This provides a route for tne writer tu build on fuundatiuns laid by earlier members of a specific aCildemic section, bring their words ilnd voices into his or ner own, and both activate and entcr into conversation with them. It is an indication too of wnose vucilbulary is being used ilnd where ,my paraphrilsing (or, perhilps, plagiarising?) is likely to be drawn from: the sources for the writer's own, and Imitated, words. A common purpos\' is to declilre allegiance to the individuills or groups bl'ing quoted, ilnd in doing so to c1ilim in tum il presence within tneir circle. Quotiltion enilb1cs il writer to stand in alliance witn revered words and voices from the past and, as quoting does, endow oneself with sometning of their authority. HNe is il remgnised site for writers to don their distinguishing 'intell\'ctual badges' (Stinchombe 1982: 2) and flag up whose words and voices count. As with other forms of quoting, the academic genre, admired in some contexts, is '11so subject to criticism and resentment. It nils been seen as pretentious, exaggerated, self-serving, showing off, scholarly window dressing, a cynical hitching of you r wagon to a well-known star, alien,lting, a bulwark ag'linst uutsiders. [t Ciln be deplored as a sign of the archaism of the scholarly world, backward-looking ancestor worship pervaded by ritualised but irrelevant references to the 'classics', a pretext for the dead hand uf thl' pilSt tu stifle the distinctiv\'ness of newly motivated wrikrs or the innov
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paper after paper repeats and replicates the same 'big names' with continually recycled products. Nor is there even a guarantee that the writer has much closl' acquaintancl' with thl' words .md voices invoked, ll't alone thoroughly transformed them into soml'thing new. Dropping in an unthinking superfluity of quotations and allusive references is after all a common response to the demands of this genre of writing. The British commentator's reply to the question of whether she possessed any quotntion collections has many parallels: 'I do, and J stuff them into my acadl'mic writing to make it look good' (MO/G3042). Looking back ,1t my own version r hav(> to say that it does indeed fall in with many of the recurrent features of the genre, the negative as well (hopefully) as a modicum of the positive. The style alonl' is a signal that her(> is som(>on(> writing itS a member of the scholarly club, interpenetrat(>d as it is by direct and allusive quotation from the words and voices of others, predominantly those of other accredited scholars. The first section of this appendix is marked by dirN:t quot'ltion from selected authorities: introduced in each cas(' for a reason, admittedl y, but nevertheless in a way there to impress, as well as making the text look less turgidly dense ,1Od expressing things better than 1 could myself (or at any rate saving 011..' the trouble of trying to say it equally well). It is also stuffed with references, that allusive variant of quoting, not all fully digested or mastered, no doubt, but sel'mingly a necessary bit uf showmanship in this kind uf writing. The same could be said of the prolific use of footnotes jammed in below my main text: heavy-laden with citation and implied quotation they provide il neat way uf flaunting a multiplicity uf others' words and vuices in suppurt uf my own. The perceptive reader will hopefully have been impressed by these many citations and direct quotations, craftily indicating my knowledge uf the fidds bl'ing enterl'd and buusting my uwn authority by the subtle take-over of their voices into my own while at the same time claiming my own pnth as singular. The authorities I choose 10 quote and cite, above all in the self-justificatory (self-promoting?) rationall' in the first part of this appendix, also declare my identification with particular wings of the scholarly endeavour. Thus the emphasis I lay on the voices of the mass observers aligns 011' with certain schools of research and theory, bolstered by citations that define and authorise my stance and erect a defensive shield of scholarly words and voices to cover me against attack. Self-defining and supporting too are the quotations from pragmatist scholars and those within the influential tradition of linguistic anth ropology.

286

Wily Do We Quote?

The 'scholarly I' of this work thus cites, repeats, signals, wea\'es in, acknowledges and in some sense tacitly takes to its...'lf the words and voices of thuse mnny uthers bruught into plny here. So I SUPPOSl' thnt nn unexpressed hope here nnd elsewhere mny be thnt in the process [ cnn borrow a little of the lustre of some of the shining writers that I quote, like Mikhail Bakhlin, Erving Coffmnn, Hownrd Becker, Richard Bauman, or even (were thnt possible) Erasmus, and might be recognised as somehow ranged alongside them, carrying on their heritage in the unfolding world of scholarship. This quote-imbued style of acndemic rhetoric is only too easy to criticise and, especially in its extremer expressions, to ridicule for its excluding and over-the-top pretentiousness. But for all that it is a point of some note in our contemporary culture that n genre in such high standing should turn on n sh'lred value for the words and voices of others. This quoting style is intimatC'ly bound into our arrangements for scholarly publication, distribution, approval, editorial judgements, examining, carL"'r devdopment, and reseilrching. How and whom writers quote either directly or by implication is among the Significant criteria by which academics judge each others' worth and relevance, and the process through which they communicate nut just in their own tunes but thruugh the wurds and voices of a host of others. Quoting and its ('valuation, in fin(', lie at th(' core of cont('mpornry practices in the schularly wurld. Bruet' Lincoln's high wurding is perhaps nut too overblown when he sccs citation as a ritual where wc 'place ourself in a lineage of past scholars, and we make public statement that our ancestors arc not forgotten ... Ibuilding) a chain ... that links the Jiving nnd the dend' (Lincoln 1977: 155). We forge thilt link both in our direct quoting of others' words ilnd in the more allusive processes of identifying, rc-producing and weighing the voices of those uthers who are in one wny or anothl'r called ontu thl' stage or lurking in the Wings. In Anthony Grafton's equaJly pertinent comment on the footnote and its dtational practices. historians - and other writers too - 'make their texts not monologues but conversntions in which modern scholilrs, their predecessors, and their subjects aJltake part' (Grilfton 1999: 234).

Appendix 2. List of Mass Observation Writers

The names of those on the Milss Observation panel of commentators ,uc confidential but each has a unique idl'ntifying rdeTence and provides

a brief self-description with each response, The following lists the selfdescriptions of those who responded to the 2006 autumn Directive on Quoting and Quutation, cumpiled from thcir self~returns and the master list held. together with the original Directive responses, at the Mass Observation Archive, Uni\'crsily of Sussex, Brighton, BNl 9QL, UK (abbreviatiuns and capitaJisatiuns cle follow the formilt of the originals).

The list is included here in the belief thal it is as important to acknowledge these quotable and quoted sou rees as it is to Include the maT" conventional 'I{l,ferl'nccs' that folluw. A883 Male, 73, married, Chelmsford, retired Arch. Asst A1292 Female, 73, widowed. grandmother, Croydon, p-t teacher A2S01 Female, 41, York, long-term nun-wurking ME for 18 years, prev. studying to be solicitor A3403 Male, 36, single, Bletchley, unemployed (usually works in factory stores or as 'warehouse operiltor') A3434 Female, 41, married, W. London, (etired in 2003 after 15 years working on UK stock market 10 have ,md care for son (3Yl years) A3884 Male, 39, living with male partner, Bedfordshire, primary school teilchcr 889

B786

Female, 75, divorced, Leighton Buzzard, retired typist Femille, 72, milrried, Bilrnstaple, Personal ilssistant/5ccretilry retired

B1l80 Femille, 68, married, Ryde, S. COilsl, retired c1ilrk, previously p·t

tourist information operatur

288

Why Do Wc Quote?

B1215 Female, 53, married, Plymouth, Staff recruiter High 51 retail, retired 81426 Male, 71, married, 8rilcknell Berks, retired Quality Engincer Bl442 Male, 83, married, 5pelthorne/Stanwell, Staines, retired, 43 Aviiltion, rommission in RAF duting 1939-45 wilr

yeilr~

in

B1475 Fcmale, 63, single Chl>sterfil'ld, rl'hrl'd auditor B1654 Male

pen~ioner

(75), martied and living with wife in Rugely, Staffordshire. rormer editorial milnnger with n Scottish company publishing a seril's of weekly newspapers

B1771 Female, 70, married, Mitcham Surrey, retired Secretary

B1898 Female, 75, marril'd, E. (previously Tunbridge Wells)

SuSSI'X

(Hailsham) claims assessor

[81911 see W18931 B 1989 Mille, 79, widower, Tunbridge Wells, Borough rouncillor (Lib Dem),

retired Teilcher 82240 Mille, 85, married, business executive

C.lthedral city in the south Retired smior

82552 Female, 74, widow, Grimsby, retired nurse/midwife 82605 Female, 75, married, 3 children I deceilsed. Stilines Middx. Ex civil servant 82710 Ino response as 'boring'l 82978 Female, 37, married, Lewes Eilst Sussex, PhD student/writer B3019 Female, 39, single, Isle of Man, Civil Servant (specialising in government pension schemes) B3111 Male, 35, single, Nottingham and Sheffield B3220 Female, 40, divurced, Kentalll'n Argyll, post office clerk B3227 Male, 39,

~ingle,:

Binningham, university administrator.

83635 Female, 31, single, Colchester, primary school teacher 83323 Male, 71, married, Norton Disney; retired $.lles Manager 83886 Male, 60, married, Sheffield, University Professor C41

Female, 47, single, Shetland, voluntary worker

ClO8 Female, 73, widow, suburb, Streatham London, housewife and voluntary worker p 9911 C1191 Female, 51, divorced, Limavady, carer

Appendix 2

289

C2053 Female, 53, married, Attlebury, chartered librarian, now selfemployed clerical worker C3167 Mall', 35, single, Stoke-on-Trent, WarL'house operative C3513FemaJc aged 47 Married three children Finchingficld, Essex. Housewife (former bank clerk, cleaner, gardener) C3603 Mall', 162] bom 1944, married, Redbourn Herts, retired Youth and Community Officer C3661 Male,43, married, Barnsley S. Yorks, reconditioning starter motors C3691 Female. 42, divorced, Cromer, Local Government Officer C3802 Male, 21, Single, CirencesterjLondon. law student 0156 Female, 54, married, Dagenham, manageress of florist/card shop 0996 Fem'lle, 79, divorced, London, retired from work at Citizens Advice Bureau, but still voluntary receptionist there 5 times a week 01602 Male, 64, single, Wimbledon, retired company executive D2585 Female, early 60s, married, Bristol, 20 years worked as Secretary in large Aero-engine company, still pot clerical at local hospital 03157 Male, 51, single, Altrincham, custom"r Service Advisor D3501 Male, 48, married, Newcastle upon Tyne, Careers Advisor 03644 Female, 24, Single, Birmingham, Librarian 03958 Female, 25, single, Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, secretary at university EI74 Female, 82, born 1924, spinster, previous large village now living Manchester E2977 Male, 25, single, jackfield Shropshire, working in factory production line E3624 Male, 37, living in Dundl-'e with partner, Social Worker F218 Fem'lle, 59, divorced, Combs (?) StowmilTket. carer to 90-year-old, p-t secretary to county council, volunteer in community for elderly F1373 74 Yz, married, retired from retailing working in a school, Brighton F1560 Female, 85, married, widow, Marros Cannarthen, chairperson women's refuge [1992], previously yOllth and community worker. F1589 Female 1741 born 1932, Norfolk, lives Audley N. Staffs, retired SRN IF2218 note explaining nil return - death of near relalive] F2949 Female, 52, divorced and co-habiting with long-term partner, Colmworth Beds.

290

Why Do Wc Quote?

F3137 Female, 38, married, Cheltenham Gloucestershire, researcher F3409 Female, 59, milrricd, viUilgC neilr Nottingham, previously pMt-time registrar of births, deaths and marriages till April 2006, not now in pad employment F3592 Female, Middlesbrough F3641 Female, 66, married, Leicester, retired teilch,'r 1'3805 Male, 63, married, retired civil

~erVl\nt,

Orkney

F3850 Mall', 42, single, Hyde, Clinical supplies Co-ordinator G226 Female, 65, milrricd, Fylde cOilt, North West Englilnd, retired cou nscllo r/researchcr Gl148 Female, 71, married, town in West Midlands, was a nurse G2l34 Mille, 87, widower, Cheam, retired civil servant G2818 Male, 52, single, Manchester, teacher in special school (EH D), member of senior management team G3042 Female, 48, divorced, Hove, uni versity ildministri1lor G3126 Male, 65, married, Bedford, French Polisher G3l87 Female, 36, married, Southport, Stilff nurse G3395 Female, 47, divorced, Leeds, IT officer G3423 Female, 47, married, Hemel Hempsteild, Voice-over artist G3655 Mille, [671 born 25.3.39, Winlaton Blaydon, Tyne ilnd Wear, retired Director Motor Trade G3752 Mille, 49, sepilfated, Aberdeen, labourer G3963 Female, 34, married, Old Colwyn, housewife (previously Accounts Manilger) H260 Femille, 76, Milrried Lady. BrentlVood Essex, retired clothing ilnd cilmping shop milnager H266 Female, 83, widow, small town of Hilncastlc (?) Lines, previously Kenninghall Norfolk, retired but really only worked behveen husbands 1965-8, worked odd dilYs cooking in vegetarian restilurant H280 .... ['ilged', father bom 1882] Hl54l Male. 62, milrried, 2 adult children, Central Scotland, retired film editor, now writer Hl543Anglo-Saxon mall', 76, Sampting West Sussex, retired Local Government officer

Appendix 2

291

H1703 Female, 59, married, Derbyshire, full time HR Assistant HI705 Female, 56, married, Jersey, part time Word Processor Operiltorl Amilteur Artist H1806 Mak, 81, widower for 14 ye
292

Why Do Wc Quote?

IG10 Female, 78, married, Burgess Hill, retired

parHim~ shoe

shop assistiUlt

K798 Female, 55, married, NW Norfolk, part-time writer iUld student K3125 M.lle, 50, divorced, Cheadle N. Staffs, retired teacher K3762

F~male,

43, married, York, housewife

LlOO2 Female, 60, widow, Rocester near Ultoxeter Staffs, retired [but help in family tree felling and gardening business, helping with pllperwork), previously some work liS domestic help L1504 M.lle, SO, married, Ottery St Mary Devon, retired administr.ltor L1625 Female, 85, single, nl>edlework leacher)

Grantham,

retired

teacher

(peripatetic

L1691 Female, 63, married, Staffs, retired Probatiun Officer L16% Male, 89, widowed, West Midlands, retired L1991 Female, 70, widow, Brighton, nurse/civi.l servant L228l Female, 75, married, St Albans, one-time proof r~ader! later teach~r of maths L2604 Male, 67, married, south East EngliUld, lIluslriltor/ex-Academic L3386 Female, 27, married, Newcastle upon Tyne, Educiltion Welfilre Officer l3454 Female, 39, married, Halifilx in \Vesl Yorkshire, former IT Manilger, now stay ill home mother l3674 Mille, 57, married, Carshalton Surrey, Bus Station Controller M348 Fem'lle, 76, single, large villilge SE Eng. writer M388 Female, 76, married, Norfolk market town, fomler lecturer M1395 Female, 76, divorced, Cohhilm Suny, formerly Reseilrch Chemist/ CAB Adviser M1979 Femille, 68, divorced, Salisbury Wiltshire, retired inspector of schools (re children with spl'Ciill educiltionill needs) M2061 Female, 76, widow, Retford Notts, reti red Stat(· Registered Nurse 11.12164 FemaJe, 79, widowed, Essex villilge lTettesbury Essex], retired biologist M2290 Female, 77, married, small countrytown IChagford, Devonl, previously self-employed toumalist writing on plants/gilrdcns, later _pot sC'Crctilry. M2629 Female, 78, married, Bristol, formerly Tutor in Adult Educiltion M2854 Male, 55, single, Wisbech, surplus to requirements hod of private means M2986 Female, SO, East Grinsteild, married, ex-secondary school teacher,

Appendix 2

293

now part-time teacher Adult Ed History M3085 Male, 57, married, Brightons nr. Falkirk, Scotland, retired clerk, sales rep. shop-keeper, retired after ill health, now run home M3118 Male,41, in civil partnership, London, full time art student M3132 Female, 43, married. Cockt'JTnouth Cumbria, parHime personal finance journalist, also working on novel and part-time creative writing MA M3147 Female, 46, tmuried, Conwy; shopkeeper M3190 Male, 48, married, Easl Boldon, civil servant M3202 Female, 40, married, l'enymynydd, Snr Prescribing Suppurt Technician (Registered Pharmilcy Technician) M3320 Female, 40, single, Leicester, underemployed typesetting assistantl book order p'lcker/Rcsearch Assistilnt M3408 Female, 60, married, Coventry, retired nursery teacher M34 12 Female, 47, married, village, North Cave, teacher M3469 Femille, 43, milfried, Edinburgh Assistilnt Director M3476 Female, 51, married, Woodbridge. Rl.'gistered Nurse M3640 Femille, 38, married, Wishaw, police officer M3669 Female, 32, Single, Montrose, civil servant (ex TSO) M3670 Male, 59, Single, Hilyes Middlesex, Airline Customer Service M3684 Femille, 37, milrried, Biltterseil London, teilcher ,1SS, M3712 Female, 41, divorced, Southport MerseySide, Clerical Assistant N399 Female, 72, widowed Eilst London IStratford East Londonl retired nurse!hospitill admin [clericill officer], gardener. hjw and general factotum N403 Fem,lle, 69, widow, Pilmpisford. part time cleaner N1592 Fema.le, 75, divurced living with partner, Hl.,bden Bridge, furmer social worker, former B & B landlady N3181 Female, 31, unmarried living with long term partner, Leeds, libra.rian N3396 Female, 51, married, Haverfordwest, HIVE Informalion officer N3588 Female, English, 45, Isle of Lewis, Western Isles, psychiatric staff nurse

03082 Male, 33, single, Bartley Green Birmingham, Shift Manager/Student 03436 Female. 52, married. Conwy; Civil Servant

294

Why Do Wc Quote?

03932 Female, 40, divorced, Workington, ex shorthand/typist P1326 Female,69, married, rural location near Bath, retired Civil Servanl (Execulive Officer) P17% Female,60, married, Dorset, Part-time consultant 1'2034 Mall" 79, married, Newark on Trent Notts, retired music teacher local primary schools mlHricd, Euxton, Chor1cy, Lancs relired r2138 female, b. 1920:>, St
10

Heild of girls school

1'3209 Male, 67, married, Wclton E Yorks, Artist 1'3213 Female, 40, mmried, Dwygyfylchi, housewife/mother/volnmologist 1'3373 Female, 32, married, Cwmbran Gwent, Police Officer 1'3390 Female, 52, Imilrried]5wadlincote Derbyshire, housewife 1'3392 Female, 63, married, Kendal. Team Manager Children's Services 1'%68 Male, 66, married, Colchester, retired Eled:rician R450 Male,?, married, East London, retired builder R860 Female, 59, married, Disley Stockport Chesh, retired, gi vc talks R1025 Female 63, married, Millon Keynes, housewife R1227 Female, 62, married, villilge near Exeter, primary school teacher R1321 Female, 60, divorced, Basingstoke, Nurse R1418 Mille, 84, widower, Derby, retired decorator R1468 Female 83, widow, Derby, retired lnsp. AefO components R1760 Fem"le 76, widowed SW Essex, retired Civil Servant R2143 Mall', 84, married, Hythl' Hampshire, retired Chartered Structural Enginl'er, formerly milnaging lilrge engineering projects round the world R2144 Female, 71, married, Binninghilm, retired leilcher R3032 Male. 64, married, Cardiff, retired civil servanl R3422 Mille, 59, sing!l', Brentwood Essex, relir(d bilnker (ilnd unpaid researcher for 'Quole ... Unquote' progrilmml') R3546 Male, 42, milrried, Northallertun,. GilS service l'ngineer

Appendix 2

295

R3888 Female, 38, single, Preston Lanes, IT admin R3903 Male,46, married, Yarm, Environment Officer R3921 Male, 25, co-habiting, West Didsbury fI,.fanchester, Software Developer 51399 Female, 57, married, Tunbridge Wells Kent, no job (stuck with 95+ year old) 51083 Male, 76, married, Kingston Lewes East Sussex, retired shop-keeper, pnrt-time book-keeper 52207 Female, 54, married, Brighton, p-t Basic skills Tutor and Classroom Assistant supporting adults with learning difficulties (ex-librarian) 52220 Female, 84, widow, Kennoway, Fife, Scutland, German born/bred, retired H.T. head teacher in primary/support/nursery school, 'ardent linguist', taught languages for years, still do [20011 S2581 Female, 55, marri<.>d, Mirfield, retir<.>d Bursar 53035 Male, 59, married, Southwick West Sussex, retired banker (took early retirement at 50, just completed pot degree in Landscape Studies, Univ of Sussex) 53342 Male, 53, married, Chorley",>'Uud, Pdrt-tim<.> Administrator 53659? lhas grandchildren] 53750 Female, 30, single (divorced) Edinburgh, Housing Services Officer 53779 Mall', 44, single, Cheadle Staffs, librarian 53844 Female, 32, co-habHing, Glasgow, NHS librarian 53845 Mall', 40, married, Sheffield, Social Worker

T1411 Female, 85, widowed, Blaenporth Cardigan, Artist, retired artistp'linter mnning own shup and gallery (19911 TI961 Female, 58, married, Burgess Hill, hou5ewife and pot Nursery Nurse T2003 Female, 57, married, Fled, Hants, Family Court Adviser T2543 Female, 73, single, Dudley W. Midlilods, retired library assistant T2964 Female, 39, married, Halifilx, Librarim 1'3155 Male, 58, milrried, Mablethorpe Lines, gap year! (retired) [prev. motor mechilnic for local council] 1"3617 Ft'male, 34, Single, ChL'Slt'rfil'ld, Derbyshire, rL'Ceptionisl for S.-UL'S office of aluminium company; prl'v. foreign language teacher secondary schools

296

Wily Do We Quote?

T3686 Mille, 70, milrried, London, semi-retired trade milrk ilt10rney TInS Male, 70, married, Darley Abbey, Translator and writer

T3902 Female, 22, single (h'lVe boy friend), Acklington, Customer Host V3091 Male, 43, mMried, Chelll'nham Broadcast Journalist V3767 Mille, 68, married,. Cambridge, largely relired from managing my own company W563 Female, 89, married, Old COlwyn, Clwyd, pre-[('lircmcnt doing

market research

W571 Female, 69, married, Cottingley Nr Binglcy W. Yorks, EX-5.11L'S Assistant pot shop assistant/check-out operator in mini-markl'l: and wine store W632 Female, 65, widow, Southwick Sussex, retired Business Analyst W633 Female, 64, married, North-East England, journalist W729 Female, 49, married, Dundee, Supply Teacher W8S3 Female, 72, married, Wirml suburb, retired W1813 Female, 56, married, Stone Staffs, Teacher WI835 Female, 72, married, Southwold Suffolk East Anglia, Housewife pre\,. nurse (till left 10 bring up 3rd child) W1893 Mnle, [82] born 1924, mnrried, Fetixslowe, retired (1983) worked with same compnny for 43 years, retired as Senior Production Manilger in large food factory W2107 Female, 66, divorced, Ely, Museum Attendant W2174 Mille, 62, married, Kent village, retired CiVil Servant W2244 Female, 77, married, Hamlet in the North, retired Careers(feacher W2322 Male, 62, mnrried, Fareham. Hants, retired teacher W2338 Female, 74, married, Village near York, retired teacher W3048 Male, 47, married, Wotlon, Company Director Sales and Marketing DirL'Ctor in speciillist softwnrc development comp.my in broadcasting sector W3163 Female, 48, married, Bncup Lancs, Wage Clerk W3176 Male, 65, widowed, Greenfield (Saddleworth) retired teacher W3233 Female, 26, single, Woodhatl Spa, University student W3393 Male, 74, married, Stockport, former university teacher W3730 Female, 39. married, Beverley, Adviser at Otizen Advice

Appendix 2

297

W3731 Male, 45, married, Bt'ver!ey, Translator W3740 Female, 41, married, PortrhydfendigMd, General sales assistant \V3816 Female, 33, married, Danby, Primary school teacher

W3842 Female, 37, single, Oldhnm, regional manager W3967 Female, 39, cohabiting, Database Manager Y2926 Female, 48 [has children], married, Horsham, p-t ward clerk on a 'cart' of the elderly' ward in local hospital

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- (2003) Dylall's Visions of Sill, Lundon: Viking. Rile)', Henry Thomas (trans!.) (1896) The Comedies ofTemlce, New York, NY: Harper & Brothers. Roberts, Kilthleen Glcnistcr (2004) 'Liminality; Authority; and Value: Reported Speech in Epidt'ictic Rhetoric', Commllllicatron Theory 14,3: 264--84. Roberts, W. Rhys (ed.) (1899) LOllgillllS Oil tile Sublime, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robcrtson, Joseph (1785) All E.<.
Douglils (2006) Pcrfimuativl' PragmatICs, London: Roulledge.

Rose, Shirley (1996) 'What's Love Got to Do with It?' Language alld uarm'ng acros!' ti,e Digiplim's 1, 3: 34-48. Rouse, R. H. and Rouse, M. A. (1979) Prtll£heTS, Florilegill and SermOll!': Studies 011 the Milnipulus florum of Thomas "f Ire/Ill/d, Toronto, ON, Cmada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Rummd, Erika (1994) 'The Reception of Erasmus' Adages in Sixtecnthcenlury Englilnd', Rellai!'Si/llcelllld Rtjontllltioll18, 2: 19-30, Rumsey, Alan (1990) 'Wording, Meaning, and lingUistic Ideology', Americall Anthropulugist 9: 346·61. Sm'nger, Paul (1997) Space bdwrl'l1 Words. 1111' Origins uf Silent Rradillg, Stanford, CA: Stnnford University Press. Saka, Paul (2006) 'The Demonstrative and Identity Theories of Quotnlion', The JOllrnal of Philn:;ophy 103,9: 452-71. Sartiliot, Claudelte (1993) Citatiollaud Mudcmit.lI: Dl'rridll, Joyce, al/d Brecht, Norman, OK: Uni versity of Oklahoma Press.

316

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Sasson, Jack M. (ed.) (1981) Oriental Wisdom, special issue, {imrnal of the American Orienlal Society 101, I. Savage, Mike (2010) Identities and Social Change in Britain sillcr 1940: Thr Polilic-~ of Mdlmd, Oxford: Oxford Uni vcrsit}" Press. Sa vran, George W. (1988) Telling and Retelli IIg_ Quotat iOI1 in Biblical NarratilJ/', Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Schcchncr, Richard (2006) Pt"Yformatrce Studies, All Introductiun, 2nd edn, London: Ro"tledge. Schieffelin, Bambi B. (2007) 'Found in Translating: Reflexive Language across Time and Texis in Bosavi, l'apua Ne',v Guinea', in Makihara, Miki and Schicffelin. Bambi B. (cds) Ctm"eqllellces ofContact. Language Ideologies ulld Sociocultural Tram<[onnutiolls ill Pacific Societies, New York, NY: Oxford University Prl'Ss. Schulze-Bllsacker, Elisabeth (1997) 'La place dll prowrbe dans la mentalitimedieval', Paremia 6: 565-76. Scollon, Ron (1994) 'As a Mallcrof Fact: The Changing ldcologyofAuthorship and Responsibility in Discourse', World Ellgii.,hes 13: 33-46. -

(1995) 'Plagiarism and Ideology: Identity in lntercultural Discourse', Lallgnage hi Society 24: 1-28. Scoll, Walter (1902 I 1802I)Mi1l.';trelsy ofthe Scoffisll Border, cd. T. F. Hcndcrson, Edinburgh and London: William B1ackwood and Sons. Shcridan, Dorothy (1996) 'Damm,d Anecdutes a/rd Dallgenlils Confabulations'. Mass-Ob,;ervatirlll as Life History, Brighton: University of Sussex Library, Milss-Observation Archive Occasionill Pilper 7. (2005) 'Researching Ourselves? The M,lSS Observation Protect', in Finnegan, Ruth (ed.) Participlltirlg in till' Knowledge Society: Re~archas beyorld the Unil1ersit,If Walls, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Street, Brian, and Bloome, D,wid (2000) Writing Ourse/lll's. Ma.~s­ Ob,;eroatioll alld Literary Practices, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Sherman, Brad and Strowel, A],lin (eds) (1994) Of Authors al/d Origills, Essays 011 Copyright Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sherzer, loci (1983) Kill/a Wa.lfs of Speaking. An Ethnographic Perspective, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. - (1990) Verbal Art in San Bias, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shllman, Amy (1999) 'Ethnography of Writing', in Wagner et al. Silk, Michad S. (2003) 'Plagiarism', in Homblower and Spawforth. Silwrstein, fo.1ichael and Urban, Greg (cds) (19%) Nalural Histories of Discourse, Chic
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-

- (1999)' Michacl Verinus and the Disticlls of Cnlo in Spain: A Comparative Study in Reception', in Taylor, Bllrry and Coroleu, Alejandro (eds) Latill and Vernacular in Renai,;,;allce Spain, Manchestl'r: Manchester Spanish and l'ortuguL'Se ShldiL'S. - (cd. and trnnsl.) (2004) Alonso de CartaSCl/aU) Cat/ulIlimla GIIl/cctio, Bristol: HiPLAM. Tcnnyson, Hallllm (1897) Alfred Lord TellllYSQIl. A MCl/!oir, London: Macmil1an. Thane, P,lt (2001) 'Old Women in Twentieth-century Britain', in Botc!ho, Lynn llnd Thane, Pat (eds) WOl/!cnllnd Ageing in Britislr Society Since 1500, Harlow: Longman. Thomas, Donllld Serrell (200!:\) Freedom's Fnmtier; Cellsor.5lJip ill Modem Britain, London: John Murray.

318

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Thomas, James (2002) BCllcath the M"14rt1illg VeiL Mil~s-Obscrvati(111 and thc Death of Dialla, Brighton: University of Sussex Library. MassObservation Archive Occasional Paper 12, Topia, Andrc (1984) 'The Matrix and the Echo: Intertextuality in Ulys.«es', in Attridge, Derck and Ferrer, D.miel (eds) Posl-Slructf4ralist (oyce: Essays fnl!l1 thc FUr/ch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Toynbee. Jason (2001) Creatillg PmbJcms; Social Allthorship, Copyright alld the Pmdl4ctioll of Cul/ure, Milton Keynes: Open University Pavis Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Pavis P'lpers 3. -(2006) 'Copyright in Music', unpublished seminar paper, Open University.

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References

3'19

Whiting" B. J. (1953) 'Tilley's Dictionary of Proverbs', Westerll Folk/ore 12: 3043, 105-113. Wilson, Deirdre (2000) 'Met.ucprescntation in Unguistic Communication', in Sperbcr, Oan (cd.) Melan:p,·cS(lltatiOIlS: A MlIltidisciplinary Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, John (1844) Treati..;e lJII Grtllllll1atimi PlIIrdlUltillll, Manchester. The Author. Wingo, E. Otha (1972) Latill PlIllctuatioll ill tlreOa.·;sicai Age, The Hague; Mouton. Woodmnnsce, Milrthil and Jaszi, reter (eds) (\994) TI,.. C'lIsfn,eth", <>f AlItlwn;lrip: Textual Appmpriatiol1 in Lll!v and Literature, Durham, Ne Duke University Press. Woods, Leonard (1824) Dr Woods' Lecture Olr Quotation. The Objecti
Index

academic discou,se xii, ;;§., ffi 189, 199. 200, 206, .li!. 215, 217, ~ 245, 267-86; as

!,"'",..,

2mlr. PhillZ.5.

.lIu,ioll lZL. 18\ .t.d& tii..ll1.. M al", quotation: terms for AI,I"r, Ilend! lALS analogy.li,.22.6l.!.bZ ancestors 164, 165,.l2:i..lli An
26i "".

antl\()logi~'S ~ill

.phorisms ~lll.2Zll Arislophancs 195, 226. Aristotle 237, M1 I\s h. n I i .l£il.,l Atki",on, l'a.,1 267,2Zll aucl6rita.•. a"wm'lM'$ 2& 121, 1.12·6, 22.liol auditory 'l"otation 2. 52-3, 106·7. 168. lSS.

z..

00 ......Iso n'"sic; p<.>rformanre; song Augustine 133, i l l

All,len, Jane 101, 105·6, 115. Austin, J. L.:u.z authorship 28. 201-2, 2.2l.:J1. i l l lIad.rareo, C1,ir" Hoer!>, i l l B"CZ, Fcrnando l l i Baker, Nkholson 'IT Ilakhrin, M. M, 100, 1114, 25S, 274-7, 2Btl

ball.lds ilL.liI.i,Z llall3rd, Brigid 2311 Banficld, Ann 100 Barber, K.'rin 159, l.tl.:l. Z!!U ZZlI..ZZl.. 22Jl.

Barbieri, F~...teri~a l.6S. Barker, Wilh.mill Barth..., Rolant.l215. B4rll'l! '$ Famili.r Quota/ions 121, I H, 143,.1.5ll Barton, Da"id 2ZIl Basso, E1len.1.85 ]\asso, Ke;th 1l.2ZIl Bate, Waiter Jackson 2:l!l llauman, Rid'3rd 16-1, 18S, 270, 275, 276, 277, 286.

Baumgardt, U",ulalfi!l Baynh.m, Mike 103, 171, ID fI.".erman. Ch.r1es 2lllL Ikck"r, Alton L lb2. Becker, HOW3rd 270, 281-2, 186 Bede ill llen·Amos, 1)3n lZ5. B~'J1eclic!, B"har. M. 122, U5l &nna,.', Book of Q"oloNons m.L1..L i l l Bendy, Lionellli BerkenkntlcT, Cir<>l2&l Bibl", quotation in 183. 193; as quotation source 5. 1.. 18-21, ll:H. ~ ~ 2§, 6:ll&. !!Z. B2, 'i'!!.. 'll.. 114, .llZ. 19H. 209, 211. 2261.. 2.16. 239. 256; sa olso M.l!hrw (gospel) BinsteJ, Kim 126 Blackbum, Nicholas 2ll BI,'ke, Willi.m lll. 108, 115. Bbk"more, D,.lll.l Bloch,loel21U

Boas, fr.nz2ZJl. (In,,s. Marrus l3li Book ofConmlGn Prayer 115, ill BookafIIG.,slAll Ixx,k lill"" 5. 196, i l l Born.t loann. ill Bounfour, Abdellah 1iill Howd
n;, m

m

322

Why Do We Quote?

Butlcr, Samuel 222 Byron, Lord i l l Byth,-'Way, Bill 212 ulligrophy J,.176-7, 197, i l l Car•. Samud l29. Carruthcrs, Mary %. 2Z9. Cartwright, Bert 2l1li Casana"c, Christine Pearson carchphras"" lL ,2Z.. 22. Id Calo Di~lichs 136-40, 143, 146,.llIl. C.wfcchio. Fc:dcrica i l l Caxton, WilIiam 138, ill=.3. cCn.'K)",hip 2J~-.'i. i l l ern I (I lliI!.. 2;H Chamberlayne, I'ruc ID Chase. Wayland Johnson 1.'lti.lJZ Chau..,r, Geoffrcy 11&1l!!\.. 221 Cheesman, Thorna, 23ll Chinese literature ll&9. church fathers 1!2. 2Z. Hi. 22Z Churchill, Wins ton !L£L!!!. 118, 2il Cic<'ro .uz...ll2.lH. 2il Clanchy, lohn 2.lll Clark, Herhertll.2.N et,uk, James G. 1.12 classical Iileratu '" Z. 201. 20~.llio!i

n.

m uz. m2B3.

chrh';~M.69.

Coe, f{ichord 2li Cot'k'Y' Amanda 1fil Coleridge, Samud Taylor un. collection. of quotations l.ll:il. 6S.. 11,1- J52, l2..218, 2(,8; longe"ity of 141.7,152, 242: motiv
mm239.

""

Communia l l i Compagnon, Antoine 2.ZIl Confucius 148.9, 194.24.1 Con nor, Ulla no Conle, Gia" l!!2..ilZ.~2Z'l conv,,«ation !1. J1.] 1·2, ~ ,21!.!!£.!H. 2&9. '-u also dialogu<, copyright 1. ~ 225, 229-36, 232-3, 243, 249, 2.>0, i l l Couln,as, Florian lOO.J.lll..liI.i COO"'" Magnu' 1Ji.i Cowl'er. Willi.m ~ill Crags. Kenneth lZZ Commings, Louis" i l l D.,I"i L1am. 5Jl. DaVIdson, Donald 222 Da"ies. Charlottc Aull 2ZO. Dc Ilrab.,nl<'r, phillipP<' 103, lili.

DeCrazia, Margr",a 9Il..%.n<.lli Dcazley, Honan 2li Dc La Mer". Walt"r 21 Dcnzin, Norm.n K. Mm 211 Dervin, Fred 230, 2Sll Dewey, John 2d. dialogue l. 'l.1Q.. ~ l.&kZ Dicks and Sayi.g., of I!ri; Philowph"., l..4lo3. Diel"'''"",n, Leonard ::!H..2l6. diplc M!::.25. %_R; st, also quotation marks Jir«./i"di,."". 'P~" xi;, Z2. 101-6, ~57i _ al50 fr"", indirect speech Don Q"ixol~ 18(,.125: duuble"'oiced J1l1.,2 s~ al.'" fr~~ ;ndir«t spe<:
&-1<', Lis"lli Eden, Kathy i l l ,->ducalion 22,J. 1'>4.~, 2S1.a 01<0 seh""ls; studcnls Eisn"" Carohne 225. Eliot. T S. HIS, 20H,.ilL. 216, 23a "mail i.~:u.,5Ii "".bl~m books l!ill. Emcrson, Ralph \Valdo l!i. ;§'l!!;120~,

m

==

En);cll, James 2J2 "pigr.'ph.5,.ll8. epitaphs ill_ 01"" gravestones Erasrn"., Desiderio. ill:ll. ~

l.il. ill..

l±L.l.1!!..lli!.. l 'Kt, Jfi. m:& Z&;:M.2B6.

li. 268, 270-73, 27S; of .peaking/writinglL 21Jl Etienne, Henri ~ 1lIll "xl',-,,"I;on. as frame lor quotation ~ ~>jhnography

f.,mily sayings 2=J.ll...lB..1.6.9, 34·7, Feldrnan, Carol Hei"her 15ll. Fielding. ]-I~nry 221i Fijian mrl, lli films 22.& 6l. fi2. 115, llB. Finneg.n, Ruth 1.l11,l!!L.lZ!!.lli Flauhert, Gust..·" ill jlaril
m

~~

!l:1

index Fr~nklin,

free

Benjomin 1.iQ.lM1.ll1.2&l speed, 100-02, 105, lati

indir~>ct

GabNrd, Krin i l l Gallinal, An..,lma 2liZ G.:>ncl IGh"nll, u niversil,; i l l Gandhi l'Ll..ll±.241 C;arber. Marjorie 'E, 109, 261, 2Zll Geary, )~me:o; 2Zll Ge"nette, G<'r~rd 2Zll genre 173-1, 211, 218. 244-5. 2.SIi gesture ~ aiso p"rform"nee Ghanaian novels 204-5, 111 Gibbon. Edward 2.JZ=B. Cikuyu 111 Gilbert. Nigel 2.lll GiJlespie. Marie Z& 29. Gilmour, Michael j. 20ll, 2ll:'l C;odzieh, Wlad lll6. Goethelli,llli Coffman, Erving lli:L.2Sii (;"'idstein. Kenneth S. i l l Goodwin, Ch.ul", l l i Goody, lad, l5ti Gr<,fton. Anthony 279, 2il2-l2.8li Gmham. Wi!liam ~ graveslones 136, 197, i l l Grij;jl;s, Earl Leshe 2..l.4.

l6:l.."

a

Haben,ehl, Rudoph E.llB. Haberland, Hartmut 1l15. Ilall, Geo. Scarr ill Hamilton, Mary 2Zll Haneh~'T, Miehael122, 145,15ll Hanks. WilIi"m, f. 168,275, Hallsen, Elaine Tuttle i l l Hon,en, Will;am i l l Hare Krishn,'l9.11 Haring. Lee 165, 162. I Jorper, [)oujl;las 29Harcis, Roy ill. H,vilbnd, C. r. 2J2. Hayw~rd, John ill Hazehon, Richard.lJ6c Healh, Sbirkoy B. 2Zll HcbeL Udo j. 2lili Hertz, Rosanna 2liZ l-IeY"'ood, John.l4b Hill, lane l:J.. 105. J.!ji. 275, 22b. Hi",chkind, Charles UiZ Ilodgmall, Arlhur W.!lZ Hofmeyr, I",bel .!2.1. 2.Ii1 H<)lm~'S. SI~'Phani .. i l l Homer 1!6. a2. 91...l!H..lIfu. 2I.!1...u& 22li Homer, Bruce D. ~15!l Ilonan, r. ~ Honko, Lauri

m

m

323

11001"-'" John 229. Horac.I36,191.lli Housm'm, A, F_ 21 How~rd, Rebcre,l Moore 22.\ ZM. 2.19, 21:!t H"yl's Cydopedio of PrlUhcal Quolations 120,

121 Hubbl., Nick 211 Hubler, Ales 15!l Huckin. Thomas N. 2&l Hughes, P~ull. 2ll humour §Q, 62..""", "I..., ploy; juk~, Ilulller, G. K. !lIUlIl. Hunler, Unci" BB. Hu,b.,d, T. F. .nd M. F. A.l.5lioZ Hymc;, DeIIl:J..-'ll1lli hymns Hd1.;;§' ~ 118, 166, l21d hl'PCrllnk 213, l l i 11>0 16lJ imilah-~n

12& 2Ill.:i!.. Zll.. 22.1..12, 25Z """J..,

quot~lioll: ddilling

'nd,-x n""o, Flen 2N na joy..., Jam,," i2. 102, l29. Kal'p"lo1ll.5 Ka",a""" Deeplhi !;lh i l l Kamc,,-~, Ed,,'ard 2ll1oJ Kapch.n, IAwrah 1M. Kaplan, Norman 2!ll Kca!>, J<.>hn 108, 109. i l l Kcllell, Ernes! Edw".d m1&.l1L 215, HQ.

"'"

Kclle,. Helen i l l Kendo~, Ad"ml1ll K~'wl"S, roulina 225 2Z2 King, Martin Lulhe. 22;i Kipling, Rudyard 12.ll31,.llLill

324

Why Do Wc Quote?

Kiltay. Jefjrey lllll KbSS d.ssical lilt'ratur" Lea. Mary R. 2BO Lcnnard. John \IQ. ~219. tL>Jllricchi •. Frank 2li2 Lessig. Lawren"" l l i Lcutsch, Ernsl Ludwig Von l1lI. tCl>' is. L M. i l l 'like', as quole m",kcr .l!>S. Lincoln, Bmcc 283, 2llfi Lincoln. Y,,()nne S. 261l, 270, i l l lingu islic anlhropology 2.Z.i,J!. lit"r",y "'I 18.1-219; and pa«,,,, Loewenslein. Joseph l l i Longinus l2I.!..22.'i l.<>Td RandallRS-7,208 l<:Jrd. Albcrt B. Z06. Love, Harold 2l5. l.owe. E. A. B§..1!& a!!. Luey, John A, lSR, 275 !-unsford. Andrea A. ID

Alatdo,,"o/'.' Did;o"aF~ In·b. !i1. 14,';. m 242,2.5!l. . Mad"l.n", Roc..,rt, i l l MacQueen, H~"ki, Bmni,l"" 274, m Mallon, Thomas 22.i Mandela, NC'lson ID Ma"ipll{,'~jlo",,,, 132·6, I4..1.1Mt Mannhdm, Brue" ill Maol94.lli Mapuehe l65. Marchand. lames 1J6. Mam,ion, Sh.hrley lllll Marsholl, P. K. i l l M"'liaI226, ll2 Marlin, Henri.jean 89: Marx, Karll'H..lli Ma~s Observation Archive!'!" li..:u. 271-3. e"m",,,ntoto.-s wii, 13.76. Z'L 2:!. ~ i l l 151, 153, 165, lDS, 2W, 214. 219, 222. 236,

m.. 239, H!1. 2.';3, Z;;n, 259, li:>Q. u!z.. 272·3, 2112,2d5. moleriol repr"'entation l i 36.7• .1£1,2 M,'locsi"n, Grogl!!l.l11 Af.llh..", (gospd) 8.L5.. 166, 178, ID Mow, Marhn ll6. maxim, ll!.. 1Cl1. 1Zl. l19. ._ proverbs; &"l.. nlio.. Mayo lfi8. McEvoy, James ULlll. Mss, Ann 132, m Most Glenn W. 22fi. mollos 2. ~ lli.1!ll Mulae, Camlyn i l l Mullell, J. 2J
.1""

m

""ran".., as fram.. for quola!ion 1& 18il &t alS
z..!'t. ;u. 'li. 2Q. !1l.. J1!5.

Nighman, Chns L.ll1..l:12..,.i

index Njogu. Kim.ni 112 novels L:!'i.. §Q, 98-9, 204-5, i l l st:r also f....-e indirect spe<.",h No",l.n. C. L. ~I\d R, A,.1.Jl nu .."ry rhymes 5.L ~ 117, i l l ONma, Barack.L'l1 Obelk"vich, Jam.'" 122,152 Olowitin~pp; .lJi.2"J

01
21

Ong. W,'ltcr:E...15Ii oral quotalion 52-4. 153-72, 181, 246-7; ~mbiv~lcnc" over IS·Hi, 2424; . .." al,,," perform.nce oralory ~ i l l s€t also rhetoric; ~ermOnS On'·ell. Gcorge l.L M Or",;n, Martin.11il Ostman, J.n-Ol. 269. m Oumarou, Chaioou Elhadji 15a Ovid J~ ZQ1.ll2. O-iford [)icl;e"a,y of Quotolien$ i. 3S.. dcrn Qu"tations Dicti"nanL'S Surwy H.3B.4llill.2tJ2 Oxford Univ".. ity Press ArchiVe< ~ 119,

Ull Palmer, F. It ill l'anctta. Clayann Gilli.'" 2Jll P",kcr, Dorothy ill Parkes,M.B,§§..87-90,2Z.2li p"rody !!l.. 175, 195.6, nL 2l.8. I'atlcrson, Lym.n R.1Y ill Paxton, Motk i l l Pen field, Joyc" lJill Pennycock. A. 230. ID Perdue, LL'O G. i l l performance 167-72, 27,'i-ll; and text

=

m

Perks, Rvbert 2Z2. Perri. Carmela ill Petley, Julian 225, i l l Phillips, Margarct Mann i l l pirtori"l ""presentation ~ Pilgri", ',' Prog"",, 194, 2112 l'itt:<. Walt"r F. .I'll plagiarism II ~ 72·3, 174, 2In. 212. 222, 223-32,231>, 2:;1, 25li stY: al"" academic discourse; 'luotation, dd;ning; students Plato ~:E.. 1-l4, 189, 190,195,226, i l l Pbtt, Su~y ID play, as fmmc for quot,'lion iliott sn olso humour; p.rody p<>ctry, as frame for 'luotation.l.l>&!l polyphony lL I&!, 194,21\ 257, 264; Sf,. olso

325

academic discours,,; free indirect sp<><xh Pope, Alexander 183, 195,201, l l i Post, IWbert C. 23i pragm,tist appro.lch 2.Z±ii P",minger, Alex 2!i2 Pre:olton. L R_ 121, i l l print 9).9;>, '.l2,. 'lS...!l'.l. 2d!I..oi1 prowrbs 8.. 12.. llZ.. ,H.. g, ~ ~ /i2.. Z1. 2Z..lIE.. ill!..llL. H,\' \,';9.60, Ih'i, 168-

m sa.. m

't. ~ lM.l2!!.l2Z. ~ ill. "' p;c'.. rc,l.Z'lM Pro",,.ts nr rimcsll1 Pullm,n, Ph,lip lJll punct~atinn ~

m

M

'!'t. 2Z. J.56,2

puns .ll5,6 Puthan, Grorge Haven 225, 226,

m

quolatJon ""'rks l."" 5,. L ll:& Z2::lll.. JEZ. 200,24.1,245,256,274- altcrn.ti'·cs to ~ ~ ,'H-!@·9;;,!!Z. 108·1I1,.lli':Zl;, history of !:!11::22. ~ meaning of ~ src also dipl. 'luotatlon: boundaries of 6.1·h, 22:lQ!1 IQ;:. 199-202, 204-5, 210, 216-17; control 01 i. ;',6.1'1. .63. 70·73, 221·.'i2; eollL..,ting 3~-41, 1 D·152; content of 15·,\1, llZ:J.!!;, defining 11.!!!. 63-6, 97-9, 102, 107, 141-2. 212-19, 2;',6·9; dualll)' of 2hl-4; hierarchy of!lJ:i. lli:1. 21;>; sources for lZ:l.2..1'l:2..ll..2:J.!i. 1.11'1--9, NlJ; terms for 121, 211-)3, 211'1-\9, 256; and past ~ }t-7, 6ll..Zi. 142, lll.. 261· 4,. ~ and ritual 11'11-219; as personal ill 2ll. 2'l. 3.i. /i2.. .1•• aiM qu"tahon m,rI,,,; quohng quotin3' ambi,'alenc(> to"'ard< !1,166-73, 222;i2;. ut of fi2..!D. ~ 11'13·219; ne",tive vie"s of 12.1Z. 'ill. 54. 6oS.7J; participants in 57-11, 69-72, 169, [87,214-16,2.16-9,240.44. H!k purposes of ;;0.:;1, 5ll-li1, ZBi. 2M..oi and po",<;",: ""tlings for 55-h 1, J!Z::Zl. 2..:l2=!l1 ,nd pa.<s;m; """ial organisati<.>n of 2ll..:.22; as in-group ~cti";ly ~ 3dl J:i. !'il.!i5,. (i2. ill 23!!, :M!t sr. also quotation marks; quotation

a

K.age UgaJ..< i l l Rabel,,, 2ll6. radi" ll.. ~ Ibgin, Chark'S 21ll Rai'OOrough, J. 2Z2. K'ndall. M,rilyn 225, 225l R'yoould, Robin 143. 153.lllfr R,..,,;, Nigcl 241, 2Jfl Ilcgicr, Willis Goth l22..2ZQ..2IY. Renais""-nc" lileratur" 180, 183, 22.Z..o2. ... olso FTasmu' rel'rcsentCLi sl""-",h Sfr frcc indirect speech

326

Why Do Wc Quote?

Rcynolds, Christophcr A . .lZi..1lti rhctoric, as fr~m.. for 'luolation 189-91; Sit, al"" "r~t"ry

Richards, LA. llU Ricks, Christopher 2DS, 212, 2Zll Riley, l'k>Jl')' Th"ma~ 22li Ritchic, Gra"mc 1.!lfi Roberts, Kathleen Gleni't'" i l l Robert" W. Rhys l.2O. Robcrtson, JOS<'ph 91 Robilloro, Amy C. 22.;,2:lll Robinson, Douslas 2f19,lli. romantir perspe<:tives 2oo-m, 222=.ll. Rnsc, Shirley 2R'\ 2£l House, M. A. and R. H.l:U.~21':l Roy, Alire M. 225, ID Rummd. Erika i l l Rumsey, Alan.l1lJ

mml12..

san~-d le~t>;

1M_7.

ill:i.l2B.

MC

.iso l3iblc,

Koran Sacngcr, Paul 91 5.,10,>, P"ul.l.i.i,6. Sartilio!. Claudette 2llll Sa""n, lock M_ i l l satire .l.'l3..,t; "'0 at"" humo" r, play Savage, Mike i l l Sa"ran, Georgc W. 185,1.21 Say<'rs, Dorothy '1't. 212 Sch,,,,hn<,r, Rirho
2il.l.OO..l.ll. 112

""rmons l1l...l!!l. Zl.[.llS: Shakesp...are S. 17·22. ;n. S!!..

.lQ& i l l ll.Z..l'LL. 19;. M

"'-""

52.!'i!. ~ li2. ll!!.. m Z:l.L

shaman 1.Mo5. Sheridan. Dorothy Sherman, Brad i l l Shcrzer. Jocl ill:l.. 270.:2Z2 Shuman, An,y 2Zll Signalling quotation 43-55, l.6LZl «< .lso quotation mark. Silk, M"h"d S. 226. Silven;tein. Mieh.",1 F.'i. i l l Sim" Gu,ms 2d4 Sk
mlZ3.

Somah~lli

songs 1. !Q..2l.~~ g,lil.~ 117, liS, 166, I;,,, 2DS·IO, III , 213, 2;H South 510 ,~e epic 2!.!IiL 2llB. spoken quotation ~c oral quotation $qui"" lohn Coiling_ 125. Stake, Robert E. 2ZU Sterhen, lam,>; Kenneth i l l Sternberg, Meir.l.ll1 Sterne_ Lawrenre 2..L 51e~~n,"n, ll."b~,.t 1.<",;, 2l.O..o11 Slicr"r, Bany 23Il Stinchconlbe, !trihur L. 2B'l Slr,,,,-",, Brian V 2Zll Slrowd, Alain 225. students, and plagiarism no), 239, 231; ~r also ,>
mill

m2lill

Ta; Chi.l.2 Tannen, [)coo"h l!!1.l2&1Qi.1Z2 Tasso 203, 21S. Taverner. Rich.rd m Taylor, Barry ll!i.l1l..U2..HZ Tedlork, Denn;, i l l tdcvision 22-l.L.':lO. Tennyson, Alf!'C'd Lord 1l.l.11..lll.ll:1. ~

22 4,23il. lcnnyson, Hall.m 138. Terenre 22!i Th.nc, Pat i l l [his • .,d lh.l oH,5. Thomas of Jrcl.nd 113, D2~, 143, 146, i l l Thomas, Donald Senelllli Thomas, lames 212 Th"mson, Ali,t';T i l l Thu'1'didc:s 1.&l Topi", Andre 2lIl Toynbt.'C.lason i l l transl.tion 2lfI. Trask, ll.. L. Z5l Truax, Bony l1J..,2 Twain. Mark ill TWine. Nan<'tft' i l l Urban. Greg U& 19+, 21j 275, i l l Usher, M. IJ.lli V"n Ocr Wurff, W. .l.!1!1.ill1llli Vawr, Dat'id i l l Vcrma. S_ K, lE Vcrschuc-rcn, Jcl ~lli

Index Ve-tln, Jean 8'l Vic,nus, Marth.a ill. Virgll!..~136, \U. !'tl..203,.nz.. Mill '">Sual repre5ftllalion 1Z!i:B2.. .c!!!.. IIUo calligraphy; gesture; J"!ffornwnce; pocI<>nal rep<eoent.>rion; quot.>hon ~.l<.; wnllnG

m.a _

Volosh,noY, V. N.1OO

Waclde. a..,rIott" 2li Wagncr. Daniel A. 2ffl Wa'-!, Drian,H Woesl")'. Chart.... m 'Mule, l Luokl Ogden US 121> 2Z9. Wh'hng.. D. J. U!l Wilde, ()§(u D,.lli Wil~n, Dt:1rdre i l l Wilwn, John 'll Wingo. E. Oth~ il6..!U Wolof 161 Woodn'an ...... Martha lli...ZlZ.lZ!I. W"""I_. 1."">03rd.l.21 Wonbworth, Wilham i.llZ.J.l!J.~i l l writing 147, 148, 153-8, li5-S. ~ 0« calligraphy; print; '1untat,on ma.~; ,..,.iNI forms

.1""

Yan""h, Kw""i lOO, 163, 164, \liS, lilt 2-'6,

mm

)"'aIS, W. D. 21 Vorubo lli:1..183, 2llHl. Y"",ng.. EdwaTd 2t!Z

327

Ruth Finnegan Why Do We Quote? The Culture and History of Quotation Quoting is all around us. Bul do we really know what it means? How

do people actually quote today, and how did our present systems come about? This book brings together a down-to-earth account of contemporary quoting with an examination of the comparative and historical background thallies behind it and the characteristic way that quoting links past and present, the far and the near. Drawing from anthropology, cultural history, folklore, cuJlural studies, sociolinguistics, literary studies and the ethnography of speaking, Ruth Finnegan's fascinating study sels our present conventions inlo crosscultural and historical perspective. She traces the curious history of

quotation marks, examines the long tradition of quotation collections with their remarkable recycling across the centuries, and explores the uses of quotation in literary, visual and oral traditions. The book tracks the changing definitions and control of quoting over the millennia and in doing so throws new light on ideas such as 'imitation', 'allusion', 'authorship', 'originality' and 'plagiarism'. As with all Open Book pUblications the entire work is available free to read online, while printable digital editions of the volume together with additional resources can be downloaded from the publisher's web site: www.openbookpublishers.colll

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