Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Reasons Why You Should Search Famous Quotes

By Shanelle Rode


Anyone with a regular Internet presence loves utilizing famous quotes in their status updates and video comments. Unfortunately, it is all too common that these armchair intellectuals fail to research the quote they post, and they have either misquoted, or given credit for the quote to the wrong person. This frequently ignites flame wars among complete strangers.

These days it seems there is an army of immature people on the Net, known as trolls, who go out of their way to criticize random posts and double-check them for accuracy. These people are notorious rude and bullying, and they can sometimes be difficult to ignore. Simply researching a quote before posting can help prevent embarrassment from a random troll.

Sometimes things have been quoted incorrectly for so long, and by so many people, that the correct quote is nearly forgotten. Bits of dialogue from old movies are frequently misquoted, although the misquote often means the same thing as the original dialogue. There are instances where people might leave a quote from a book, but that quote might be slightly different from what was in the movie dialogue.

Most often people will quote statements or phrases attributed to characters from the distant past. At times an historical figure made a statement which expressed the thought better than the person is able to express it themselves. These statements are part of the cultural myth and archetype, and sometimes a misquote is simply more pertinent to the world the way it is now.

No more often does this occur than when people are quoting from philosophers, scientists, or other famous individuals from the ancient world. Some mistranslations occur simply because of linguistic differences, and something is changed in the translation. While there is no harm in such a misquote, the Trolls will still jump on it as soon as they see it.

Of course, the behavior of these trolls says much less about the people they are trolling than what it says about themselves. A person who feels very powerless or pathetic in their lives can use a tool such as the Internet to bring other people down to their level. If one cannot ignore them, they are probably better off keeping their presence on the Internet as a silent one.

The problem of bullying has become so great that some groups are attempting to change the rules, requiring that people give their real names. They are attempting to remove the anonymity which has for so long allowed for bullying. This can certainly lesson some of the trolling that has become so commonplace.

As a good general practice, simply doing a minute of research before utilizing famous quotes in a comment or status update is just a good idea. As with any copyright, it is important to give credit to the person who made the original statement. Just to keep the trolls down, make sure to give credit to relate the quote correctly and give credit to the proper individual whether they are a modern author or an ancient philosopher.




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