One of the most helpful sources of great content for writers and speakers and for anyone who enjoys reading about language and quotations is now a free electronic publication.

Its The QuoteUnquote Newsletter, published quarterly since 1992 by Nigel Rees, Britains leading authority on colloquial language, author of over 50 books on quotations and language, and the originator and host of the long-running QuoteUnquote celebrity panel program on BBC radio. See http://www.qunl.com for additional information.

The print version was $ 40/year. Its been converted to an electronic format and the subscription fee has been dropped (a one-time $ 5 sign-up fee applies see the website for details).

The newsletter includes background articles on the origins of quotations and serves as an international forum for solving quotation queries submitted by subscribers. More than just listing quotations, the newsletter includes engaging background information that writers and speakers can use in weaving the quotations into their articles and speeches.

Particularly important for professional speakers and writers is the extensive background information provided for the quotations. More often than we like to admit, speakers and writers risk or loose their credibility by using unattributed or poorly-attributed material. “Quote … Unquote”, with its insistence on carefully documented attribution, can help bulletproof the quotations in your writing and speeches (See the interview with Mr. Rees in Forbes that details examples of mis-attributions at http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/12/nigel-rees-misquotes-opinions-rees.html or Google on the terms Forbes Rees Policing Word Abuse.)

One of the longest-running unsolved queries on the list is an observation about sex, usually attributed to Lord Chesterfield:

In view of the extended election season now under way in the U.S., here are examples of articles from past issues of the newsletter concerning politics and politicians :

According to Rees, The Yale Book of Quotations states: [This] is often attributed to Simon Cameron. However, Erwin S. Bradley in Simon Cameron, Lincolns Secretary of War (1966) states that apparently there is no basis for the definition of an honest politician commonly attributed to him.

And Rees cautions readers to note that this is Twain quoting another, not writing it himself.

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Additional political insights from recent issues of the newsletter include this one on statistics, planning and free-market policies:

[Telling Milton Friedman, in 1963, why he kept no statistics] If I let them compute those statistics, theyll only use them for planning. (Sir) John Cowperthwaite (1915-2006). Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, quoted in his Times obituary (3 February 2006). The obit. noted that, His introduction of free market economic policies is widely credited with turning post-war Hong Kong into a thriving global financial centre. Also: He trod a thin line between positive non-intervention and simply doing nothing.

Reess research led him to the British soldier and politician Lieut-Col. A.D. Wintle MC (1897-1966), who fought in both world wars and who ran for Parliament in 1945. Wintles posthumously-published memoir, The Last Englishman (1968) included this comment: My slogan was this: The last person who went into the House with any good intentions was Guy Fawkes. Its time they had another, like me, with explosive ideas.

Pushing back further in time, Rees tracked down this version, attributed to Philip Hoffman MP in the House of Commons in a debate on February 20, 1924:

[I heard] the other day that no one goes into this House on good intentions, or, at least that only one person had ever got into this House with good intentions, and that was Guy Fawkes.

And the search goes on

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A famous parliamentary jibe of the last century came about in a speech to the House of Commons on June 14, 1978, when Denis Healey, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, on being attacked by Sir Geoffrey Howe in a debate over his budget proposals, said:

That part of his speech was rather like being savaged by a dead sheep.

In 1989 Healey revealed in his memoirs that the phrase came to me while I was actually on my feet: it was an adaptation of Churchills remark that an attack by Attlee was like being savaged by a pet lamb. Such banter can often enliven a dull afternoon.

Rees notes, however, that I have not encountered anyone else who remembers the Churchill version, but he was noted for his Attlee jokes (and busily denied that he had ever said most of them). In 1990, the victim of Healeys phrase, Geoffey Howe, also claimed that it wasnt original: It came from a play, he said sheepishly.)

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Finally, a cautionary note on careful research and attribution: Several years ago the newsletter awarded its Misattributing Something to Mark Twain Award to Al Gore:

Claire Johnson told me that in his film An Inconvenient Truth, the former Vice-President attributes to the Sage of Hartford: It aint what you dont know that gets you into trouble, it is what you know for sure jus taint so. Surely, Gore h

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