Finding the Rightful Owners of a Few Famous Quotations

“Read my lips” had long been in common use when George Bush said it during his 1988 campaign, but it will always be attributed to him in the nation’s memory.

In “Nice Guys Finish Seventh” (HarperCollins) Ralph Keyes seeks to demonstrate that most famous quotations were never said by the person who gets the credit, and that most of them have been altered (usually for the better).

For example, as the title suggests, Leo Durocher never said, “Nice guys finish last.” Asked by a reporter if he was a nice guy, the former Dodgers manager nodded toward the Giants dugout and said, “They’re the nicest guys in the world. And where are they? In seventh place.”

Keyes notes that the public tends to attribute good quotes to people they think should have said them, and that revisions tend to become more succinct and effective.

For example, W. C. Fields is thought to have said, “Any man who hates dogs and children can’t be all bad.” In fact, this wisdom was spoken by Leo Rosten, in slightly different form, when introducing Fields at a banquet: “Any man who hates babies and dogs can’t be all bad.”

“The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings” is generally attributed to Dick Motta, Washington Bullets coach, who said it when his team led the Philadelphia 76ers in a playoff game. However, Motta said he heard San Antonio sportswriter Dan Cook say it during a telecast.

Keyes produces evidence, however, that the saying had been in use in the South for many years, as in “Church ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”

Many historical quotations, Keyes says, are either inaccurate or pure inventions. What sailor has not been stirred by the challenge of John Paul Jones to an enemy demand that he surrender the flooding Bon Homme Richard: “I have not yet begun to fight!”

In a letter to Benjamin Franklin, Jones said he had rejected the English demand “in the most determined negative,” but did not quote his exact words.

Marines all know a story about a Marine who had been posted in the Bon Homme Richard’s crow’s nest, dodging and returning enemy musket fire for half an hour. Hearing Jones’ challenge, he is said to have muttered, “There’s always some knucklehead who hasn’t got the word.”

Adm. David Farragut’s famous words as his fleet entered enemy-held Mobile Bay, “Damn the torpedoes--full speed ahead!” were tightened and improved. What he really said: “Damn the torpedoes! Four bells! Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed.” Wordy, but not bad.

Gen. John J. Pershing is always credited with saying, “Lafayette, we are here!” when American soldiers landed in France during World War I. He always regretted that he had not. Evidently it was said by Col. Charles E. Stanton in a ceremony at Lafayette’s tomb. But who ever heard of Col. Stanton? In any case, the saying was probably repeated among American troops at the time, and neither man deserves credit as its author.

I have written before about another disputed quotation: Who said, “Let’s get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini”? Credit often goes to Alexander Woollcott, who never said it. Others credit the humorist Robert Benchley. In the 1942 film “The Major and the Minor,” Benchley asks a rain-wet Ginger Rogers, “Why don’t you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?”

However, Benchley did not make it up; neither did Charles Brackett nor Billy Wilder, who wrote the script.

Keyes writes, “When Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith--who calls the wet clothes/martini quip one of the ‘most durable and rootless lines in the language’--asked Wilder about its origin, the director said he’d always assumed it had originated with Benchley himself.

“But during the shooting,” Keyes wrote, “Benchley told Wilder that the line originated with his friend, Charles Butterworth.”

In my research I had heard the Butterworth story. He is said to have invented the line after falling into the pool at the Garden of Allah, his favorite watering place. For a time I adopted that version, Butterworth being both witty and given to the cup.

Keyes adds, “Jack Smith considered the case closed until a reader wrote him that a 1937 film called ‘Every Day’s a Holiday’ featured the following exchange between Butterworth and Charles Winninger:

Winninger (in wet evening clothes): “I’m hot. Soaked all over.”

Butterworth: “You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini.”

Keyes concludes: “Mae West, who also starred in this film, got screenwriter billing. So conceivably the line is hers.”

The question may seem trivial, but I quote Keyes here only to show that my research on the subject is considered worth noting in a scholarly work. I am satisfied that Mae West was the author.

I rest my case. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.