Fred Shapiro Guest-Blogging on The New Yale Book of Quotations

I'm delighted to report that Fred Shapiro, Associate Director for Collections and Special Projects at the Yale Law Library, will be guest-blogging this week about the new edition of this book, and the kinds of detective work that it took. I've always loved these sorts of reference works, and appreciated the importance of separating fact from myth as to such matters. I much look forward to his posts!

Comments

[JonFrum]

I hope half the quotes come from women.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The audience knows what to expect of a White, male, conservative blog -- one that seems determined to flout modernity, probability, progress, and fairness so long as a few strong law schools permit appropriation of their mainstream franchise by the right-wing fringe.

[DaivdBehar]

Artie. You need to be replaced, by a lesbian diverse, quadriplegic with a traumatic brain injury. Such people have been marginalized. It may top your performance.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I’ll have you know that in law school I was voted “most quotable”. So I expect some of my stuff in there. I’m easy. I’d be happy with just two or three.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Commenters here quote your asinine comments all the time, showing your hypocrisy.

[Dan Schiavetta]

You might as well not read anything I write here from now on, let alone react to it, because I've muted you. Any objective observer will see why.

[Eugene Volokh]

Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf: Seriously? Here there's a mild joke, at no-one's expense except perhaps the speaker's own (the statement is facially self-aggrandizing, but I think in context it's more a mild parody of such statements). And the response -- straight for the insults. What good does that do?

[MatthewSlyfield]

It gives alphabet soup his jollies for the day?

[DaivdBehar]

Personal attack is what leftists do. The facts abandoned their side 100 years ago. The are fighting for the big government, rent seeking pay. They will get vicious with anyone opposing them. Any dissent takes money from their mouths.

[Brett Bellmore]

I was voted, "Most like to become a mad scientist and conquer the world."

Yet, here the world is, unconquered. So don't read too much into such votes.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Meh. Conquering the world is hard work. Then running it is even more work. And all people will do is bitch about how you are running it. So not worth the effort.

[arch1]

(Chuckle) scale matters, cap. Which is why I’m waiting for Yale to expand theirs beyond our pale blue dot to the cosmos at large. (I realize the access, selection, copyright, and translation challenges are considerable, but I’m sure it will be worth the wait).

[MatthewSlyfield]

The New Yale Book of Quotations

A book of quotations published by Yale, a book of quotations from Yale, or a book of quotations about Yale?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Being a textualist, I would construe it thus: There's a guy named New Yale who is very quotable. This book is a compilation.

[DaivdBehar]

People fluent in American idiomatic speech have no trouble understanding the title.

Nitpicking, parsing, loophole tracking are all forms of bad faith. They should be severely punished, with end the matter in the favor of the other party.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I hope he doesn't disprove the accuracy of Abraham Lincoln's famous quote about his love of menthol cigarettes.