Have you ever been misquoted, misrepresented or just plain misunderstood? If so, you are not alone, it happens to the best of us--in fact, you are in some pretty illustrious company.

I want to be alone

Greta Garbo was not so much misquoted in this case as she was taken out of context. She actually did say, "I want to be Alone," but she said it while playing the role of Grusinskaya in the 1932 movie Grand Hotel.

In real life, Garbo once reportedly told a friend, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be let alone.' There is all the difference."

I want to suck your blood

Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) does not utter this line in the 1931 classic movie, Dracula. However, It is used humorously in the 1994 Tim Burton directed film, Ed Wood by Ned Bellamy's character, Dr. Tom Mason, in the context of his doing a Bela Lugosi impersonation; which proves that a misquote can sometimes take on a life of its own and continue to haunt the person who never said it, even after death.

Don't talk to me about naval tradition? It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash

What Winston Churchill actually said was better-turned and more evocative: "Naval tradition? Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers, and the lash."

There is a theory, prominent on the internet, that Churchill never made this imminently quotable comment, but that, according to his assistant, an Anthony Montague-Brown, he wished he had said it. Interestingly, My 2006 copy of The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Quotations, even though it is put out by Oxford, is in the fifth edition, and has a whole section devoted to misquotes, makes no mention of this theory. I'm going to go with Oxford as the authority on this one and assume that rather than just wishing he had said this, Churchill did in fact say it. One thing that argues in favor of that conclusion is the distinctly Churchillian ring of the phrase.

If they have no bread, let them eat cake.
("S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu'ils mangent de la brioche.")

O.K., two things: brioche is not cake, it's a kind of fancy bread, and it wasn't Marie Antoinette who said this. It is actually a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiography, Confessions, in which he wrote: "At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, "Then let them eat brioche!" Rousseau doesn't name the "princess", and Marie Antoinette didn't arrive at Versailles until 1770, three years after Rousseau had written the above passage. So if there ever actually was a "great princess" who said this, it could not have been Marie Antoinette.

Beam me up, Scotty.

"Beam me up, Scotty" is probably the most overused one-liner on this green earth. Even so, it has never been uttered on any other planet, at least not by Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. The closest he ever came to that misquote was when he said, "Beam us up, Mr. Scott" in a 1968 episode of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek called The Gamesters of Triskelion.

Why don't you come up and see me sometime?

The actual line is, "Why don't you come up sometime, and see me." Which is only slightly different from the misquote, but what can't be seen in print is the way she says it. Mae West could've read out the phone directory and made it sound absolutely scandalous. In this scene from the 1933 classic, She Done Him Wrong her character hits on Carey Grant with this line: "You know, I...I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand."

According to The Yale Book of Quotations, Mae West did say, "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?", but as herself. The line was not in any of her movies, including the one her fans swear it was in, She Done Him Wrong. According to Shapiro, West used it to greet a policeman assigned to her as an escort. As she once said of herself, "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

However, the line does make a cameo appearance in her final film Sextette (1978), said to co-star George Hamilton.

Badges, we don't need no stinkin' badges!

Ah, The Treasure of Sierra Madre. In the most famous scene of this truly great film, (It's amazing how many great movies Bogey appeared in: The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Casablanca, African Queen, The Maltese Falcon... My favorite Bogey film is The Maltese Falcon. I love the hard-boiled dialog) what the Bandito says in full is: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" And then the shooting starts.

Play it again Sam.

After Captain Kirk, the most oft-misquoted character in fiction is probably Rick Blaine, memorably portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in the 1942 Hollywood classic Casablanca, who never once throughout the movie says, "Play it again, Sam." This is what he actually says: "If she can stand it, I can. Play it!" Earlier in the film, Ilsa Lund--Rick's old flame, played by Ingrid Bergman--says, "Play it, once Sam, for old time's sake. Play it Sam, play 'As Time Goes By'."

Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.

This phrase appears nowhere in Sir Arthur Canon Doyle's writings, though it was used in the screenplay of the 1929 film, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, at the end of which Watson exclaims, "Amazing Holmes" and Sherlock Holmes replies, "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary."

The closest proximity in which the words "my dear Watson" and "elementary" appear in Sir Doyle's writing is in the following excerpt from the The Crooked Man:

"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom." "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he.

Music has charms to soothe the savage beast.

This is a misquote of the most famous line in William Congreve's 1697 play, The Mourning Bride. What he actually wrote was, "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast." "Breast" in this case refers of course to the human heart, so what he meant to say was that even the most uncouth among us respond to music. Here's the full quote:

"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."

Here is a quote you might recognize, also from The Mourning Bride:

"Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd."

The beast misquote is an egregious one because it completely misconstrues the authors intention, conjuring up cartoon images of a snarling beast being lulled into passivity by the strains of a romantic air, only to dissolve once more into a ravenous fury when the music stops.




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