I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Bob Shepherd. Bob is a professional writer, editor, graphics designer, and teacher. He has also worked in the design of assessments and curriculum. You have surely seen his many comments on this blog. He is a polymath.
A few months ago, I received a note from Bob offering to edit my new book as a gesture of appreciation for my work. I have never met a Bob except over the Internet. In 2006, he helped me with my book “The Language Police.” This time, he took on what turned out to be a nearly full-time job, reading, editing, suggesting better language, deleting my many superfluous commas, and so much more. He is a true professional. The book is now almost completely finished. I don’t know yet when it will be published and must wait to hear from my editor. I don’t even know the title. What I feel sure about is that it will change the landscape. My last ask to Bob was to request his reaction to several quotes that I wanted to use at the front of the book. He shared with me his laws of quotation and attribution. He said I could share them with you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perhaps the attribution of a quote is a good way to judge whether the person who quotes is of one political stripe or another.
My favorite: “A theologian on the throne is a public danger” historian J B Bury
A theologian on the throne is also an overflow danger.
Are you making an oblique reference to the watergate plumbers?
A theologian on the throne
Is danger to the average home
Cuz sitting on the throne all day
Can lead to clogs and plumbers pay
Thanks to both Bob and Diane for making this modern-day electronic agora such a lively and edifying place.
Agree.
Remember the game we played in school where one person would whisper something into another’s ear and that message would get whispered again to the next person, and then the next?
By the time the last person received the message, it changed from what was originally said.
Maybe we need to bring that game back into the classrooms and in our homes.
“You can’t believe most of what you read on the Internet.”
–Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was way ahead of his time.
Yeah, but I bet he had a DSL connection! With a rotary dial.
Do you think Abraham Lincoln has an internet link inside his coffin and does he have his own Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn accounts and a blog?
Living in his coffin and never getting out means AL has lots of time to Tweet, post photos on Facebook, and publish Blog posts. But how many times can you take a different photo from the inside of a coffin?
“I don’t even know the title.”
Not sure about an appropriate quote but here is my suggested title based on your previous hints at the content.
Title: Twenty-First Century Education Reform: A Parade of Failures
Sub-title: The Conspiracy to Dismantle Public Education
Thank you, Diane. I’ve had the good fortune, over the years, to edit work by some of the finest scholars and public intellectuals in the country. Diane Ravitch is a better writer than any of these were, and I expect that her book to do a lot of good in the world. It’s a magnificent read.
One of my favorite of these quotation memes is “Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire.” I’ve seen it variously attributed to W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Socrates, and many others. It probably actually comes from the essay “On Listening,” in Plutarch’s Moralia, in which he said, a lot less concisely,
“For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbours for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his innate flame, his own intellect.”
It’s lovely that such stuff gets refined in furnace of the oral tradition. And now, in the age of the Net, that process can take place with the speed of photons traveling down fiber optic cables.
That children’s game is called Telephone or Operator.
Oh, and while I’m on the subject of quotation, here, one of my favorites about learning:
“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.” –Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Oh for an edit function on WordPress so that I could clean up the typos in that post!!! LOL.
Bob Shepherd, why not “coin” a top-ten list of your own quotable quotes and then tweet them out like the Twitter madman DT, … but then you would have to drink a dozen Diet Cokes a day, eat only fast food, and start Tweeting around 3 AM.
LOL. Here, my stab at replacing Propaganda Minister Stephen Miller: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/trump-rally/
“It’s a magnificent read.”
Braggart! 😜
Let me be clear: it was a great read before I mucked around with it. I don’t think I did much damage. LOL.
I meant braggart in the sense that you got to read it before the rest of us. Reader’s envy!
Yes. What a gift! It’s a powerful, inspiring work. Much need now.
Much needed now.
Well, now we will know the source if Diane refers to David Coleman as a bull’s pizzle or rampallian
Or if she doesn’t give his name and just says that bulls pizzle we will know whom she is talking about
LMAO!
For anyone who did not get the reference
Thank you, Diane and Bob. I really can’t wait to read it.
Ah..Telephone or Operator. I loved that game.
With regards to Bryshnikov’s quote: AMEN.
Read your blog. Made me laugh. Thank you.
“It is odd to see a once-liberal magazine echoing the principles of the far right.”
–Diane Ravitch (in a blog post on April 28, 2012 decrying the Virginia state legislature’s attempt to remove tenure from state law)
To me it no longer seems odd, just misguided.
Do quote need to be timeless?
“I never said half of the things I said.”
~Yogi Berra and Confucius
They both nailed it!
I never said
The things I said
But even if I had
I won’t admit
That I did IT
Cuz all of them were bad
–Donald Trump
A Ditty for the Don, Cheeto Trumpbalone
Ah, I feel a song of my own coming on.
There’s a big sinkhole at Mar-a-Lago.
Let that sink in.
Donnie is our president
Although he did not win
A popular plurality,
And that is just a sin.
Ask me what I think of him.
Oh, where do I begin?
He’s a freaking hero to
The skinhead Aryans.
It ought to be a clue that he
Has such great popularity
With skinhead Aryans.
Wink wink it’s not an accident
That one so twisted and so bent
Should be a freaking hero to
The skinhead Aryans.
It’s getting near that time of year
I never really miss much,
When Trumpty Dumpty will decry
Imagined wars on Christmas..
Our Obergruppenführer’s gone
Back to the heart of Dixie.
But Mr. Barr is now in place
To engineer a fix; he
Will try his best to exorcise
The ghost of Robert Mueller
And so prevent the sure demise
Of Putin’s favorite ruler,
That self-made man
Who built his wealth
With one small loan from Daddy
Of half a billion dollars
To his little Scottish laddie.
Thank your, Dianne and Bob, for the best laugh so far, late in the day.
Only, Bob, don’t solely blame the ‘internet’. Our ‘MSM’ drives the internet. We live in a world where ‘propaganda’ forms the amniotic fluid of our existence.
In an age when Fox can pass as a news organization, yes.
Lincoln might be dead
But everything he said
On internet is truth
Bout role of John Wilkes Booth
Insanity is attributing the definition of insanity* to Einstein over and over again and expecting that if one repeats it enough, Einstein will really have said it.
*The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results
https://www.history.com/news/here-are-6-things-albert-einstein-never-said
My favorite quotation that Einstein never said is “Common sense is that layer of prejudices laid down before the age of eighteen.” He didn’t say this, but it BEAUTIFULLY encapsulates a) how this amazing person thought and b) a lot that he did say.
I often think of this ersatz Einstein quotation in connection with the Common Core, which is “common” in the sense of vulgar, base, received, reflective of widespread misconceptions.
Read Diane’s book for some uncommon sense.
At least some of the quotes attributed to Einstein encapsulate things he actually said, so the attributions are not really surprising even if they are not strictly accurate.
“4. When in doubt, attribute a quotation, randomly, to one of the following: Aristotle, da Vinci, Lincoln, Bentham, Mill, Wilde, Churchill, Yeats, Russell, Einstein, or Gandhi. Any such attribution will be widely believed, which is all that matters.”
I’m surprised he didn’t mention Mark Twain. He’s also a popular one.
Yes
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and Mark Twain attributions
lmao
Ah, I think there might be four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, Trump’s absurd/insane lies, and Mark Twain attributions.
Five if you include the statistics of the original quote
Funny!. I did, actually, in the revised version that I posted on my own blog, here: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/putting-that-quotation-in-scare-quotes-orbobs-shepherds-laws-of-quotation-and-attribution-in-the-age-of-the-internet/
I look forward to the finished product. Diane and Bob make a great team.
In addition to be an extremely smart and talented guy, Bob is also the nicest guy you’ll ever run across on an Internet message board. Love Bob Shepherd!
Jeez, FLERP, this is my moment, and here you are talking about this other guy!
Thank you
AAAHHH…… my day is complete after reading Diane’s post about Bob; and all the comments following. There IS good in the world. So much truth and insight.
Beautiful!
What an incredibly kind thing to say!!! Thank you.
Okay so here is the thing, my comma key works about 10% of the time. So too many commas are seldom my problem. Out of frustration, I have re-invented the semicolon and pretend that no one sees the little dot. Now I could give Bob a full-time job just editing my comments. Of course, no one would pay me for my comments so Bob would be wearing Red for Ed and carrying a picket sign most of the time. Now I could edit the worst mistakes on my own but I never proofread till after I hit post comment. Of course, there is no edit button so its awful embarrassing.
Looking forward to the new book. But I hope I find it without a title (lol). Good thing I read better than I write. Good Luck with the new book. And keep up the comments Bob.
Sorry, must go off topic. Phyllis Bush was an inspiring, strong, intelligent, beautiful, compassionate, hero in the fight for justice. Great thanks to her on behalf of teachers and students across the country. My deepest sympathies to her family and her many, many friends.
Agree. Here’s to Phyllis! 🌺
Thanks, Bob, for your reliably perceptive comments and wit. It’s regulars like you who make this blog a home on the internet.
Second that.
Why We Need Bob!
Participles dangling,
Metaphors tangling,
Between and among,
One of them’s wrong.
Fewer than or less,
Leave me to guess.
Affect and effect–
Don’t give me respect.
Winston tastes good,
As a cigarette should.
Hyphens and dashes
and occasional slashes.
Pronouns, conjunctions,
Sub-verb malfunctions
And restrictive clauses
That have their own laws(es).
Etcetera, etcetera;
Throw in et al.
We need you, Bob,
To edit it all.
OMG. That’s wonderful!
Nice.
Here’s my
Letter to the Editor
To edit out
The Common Core
Without a doubt
We need him more
To edit Dave
And reading close
We really crave
The Shepherd most
To edit Duncans, edit Rhees
(Hugger muggers, if you please)
Edit Evas — scurvy knaves
Facilitators of the Daves
To edit Broads
And edit Gates —
The scurvy toads
And merkin-faced
To edit Deasy
Edit fake
Edit queasy
Worms and snakes
To edit all
Of these and more
We need to call
The Editor
During editing, some stuff is deleted and/or replaced with something new. So, why can’t we edit out the oligarchs like they were never born: Gates, Broad, Waltons, DeVos, Trumps, Kochs et. al.
What would we replace them with … an ellipsis … maybe?
Should have been slimy toads and fakeS, but I’m sure The Editor would have fixed it
Another edit
Edit Deasy
Edit Fakes
Edit greasy
Worms and snakes
As Bob pointed out in his most excellent piece, Shakespeare showed us you don’t need THE f word to curse scullions and rampallians.
Of course, other f words are very helpful: ones like fustilarian, fen-sucked, fawning, fetid, flap dragon, foot licker, folly-fallen , etc
To curse the Deformer
If not to refute
As Bob has informed here
The f word is moot
Add Kipling to Shakespeare.
My dad swore like a sailor. His epithets were eye-glazingly repetitive, really just a verbal tic. In 5th grade our teacher read us Kipling stories, and my eyes were opened to creative insults. I made good use of “you warty toad of a dried mud-puddle” on the playground.
brethee: “you warty toad of a dried mud-puddle”
OMG. LOL. Yes!
Love it. Cannot wait for your book!
Words Matter is the title of a piece I am writing.
YOUR words matter. YOU make a difference.
The Common Cure
The common cure
To common cold
Is chicken soup and rest
The common cure
To Common Core
Is Ravitch at her best
NICE one!
Love when SomeDAM’s muse is stirring
New words I learn that keep me spurring
Those rhymes that keep us on our toes
‘Til we defeat our slithy foes.
🙂
sweet!
The slithy foes
Who step on toes
Are burbling in the wood
Deformers walk
And Jabbertalk
As only mome rats could
lovelier and lovelier, SomeDAM
From the list in 4., Darwin is missing. So is God. 🙂
Yes, God is the most misquoted of all.
Eg, The Old and New Testaments.
Other than that, she’s accurately quoted.
Oops, forgot the Koran and the Torah
This is a nondenominational criticism
SomeDAM Poet: How about this doozy from the Bible:
“Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”
Psalm 137:9 ESV
HAAAA! Yes!
Genesis
The Heaven and the Earth
Were difficult in birth
Which took a total week
And God could barely speak
She whispered to the babe
I think you’re worth the work
Now babe, you must behave
But babe was just a jerk
He partied and he played
And warred and all the rest
And God said what I made
Is really just a mess
I think that Bob Shephed is a darned fine editor. –G*d.
G#d knows what He/She is talking about.
Very kind, Diane! Thank you.
Bob Shephed, he is good
But Shepherd, who is he?
Was question posed by God
He doesnt speak for me
Let me remind you, SomeDAM, that first Noel was to certain good Shepherds.
Maybe it depends on which God you ask.
Your quote above referred to some fellow named Shephed
And we know that since God is perfect, she does not make typos.
Does God type? I thought, she dictates everything, so all the confusion and misunderstandings are not her fault, but the typists’.
God should be a woman but can’t be. If God was a woman, Trump would have never made it to the White House. In fact, he would have been born as a malarial mosquito.
“In fact, he would have been born as a malarial mosquito.”
After all this high-level theology, finally a topic for high-science: we know that male mosquitos don’t bite (what do they eat, though?), but do they spread malaria?
I have a theory. Trump is a hermaphrodite and I’m not saying that to insult hermaphrodites. In fact, I read “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides and enjoyed the book, but Trump is a hermaphrodite right out of a serial-killer hell type of horror film.
Image Trump running around naked covered in blood holding bloody axes and knives in both hands.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we discovered that rump gave birth to all of his own children without the need of a real woman. He just F-ed himself and got pregnant. His wives have always just been for show to hide the truth about …
I mean, the evidence is overwhelming that Trump only loves himself … and I think that love is the extreme kind.
Lloyd Lofthouse:”Image Trump running around naked..” Oh please, NOT that. Anything but that. NO, NO!
Don’t click the link or you will see DT almost naked on Miley’s wrecking ball. He does have shoes and underwear on. At least I think it is underwear. It’s possible it (what I think is underwear) is a large ACE bandage being used to hold him together.
Well, there you are. SomeDAM was able to see through my wickedly clever subterfuge!
Does God type?
Now there’s a question that has probably never been asked before.
But a good one nonetheless.
But I think that it is neither here nor there.
God does not get off by simply laming the typo on someone else because God undoubtedly has white out if not self-correct..
And Bob
Shame on you for leading us to believe that God supports your editing when what she actually supports is the editing of Shephed.
You will burn in Editors Hell 😈 for this transgression.
You are underestimating the subtlety of the One, SomeDAM, clearly. As I see it, s/he made of me a vessel for testing your generosity of spirit toward your fellow man (that would be me). Wherein lies your redemption? That would be the question.
In all seriousness, now, Thank you, SomeDAM, for your delightful verses, here and elsewhere. So many times when they have made my day!
“Does God type? Now there’s a question that has probably never been asked before.”
Well, we always have to go to the root of things, don’t we, dear fellow theologicians, and since you brought up the ancient puzzle of Shephedian typos…
I wonder if Shephed even knows that you are riding his coattails.
Shhhh. SomeDAM. Shephed is my cover.
“Shephed is my cover”
Well, Bob, this cover works only against English majors.
Subtlety?
More like deviousness.
Are you suggesting God is devious?
The Basement of Editors Hell for you!
I would call it playful. The rasa lila.
Editors Hell:where you have to edit (and make sense of) Arne Duncan’s speeches (eg, about suburban mom’s) for all eternity
Not since Hieronymus Bosch has such a frightful vision been conceived!!! Yikes! But given the recent uses of the word “reform,” I balk at reforming myself.
My favorite quote from the Almighty:
“I’m afraid I let my mother down. She wanted me to be a doctor.”
I like Blessed are the cheesemakers.
This quote defines Trump very well. Maybe this is why the Evangelicals worship Trump. He is mentioned in the bible.
……………………………………
Mark 7:20-23
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Bob Shepherd Rules!!!
For students of Education Rheeform, A New Reformish Lexicon: https://wordpress.com/post/bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/23
Here’s a ‘not so great’ quote from a letter that just came from my Senator Todd Young {R-IN] Todd Young is a Trump big time sycophant. I REALLY DETEST THIS MAN!
……………………………………
‘After weeks of careful study and discussion, I voted to preserve President Trump’s national emergency declaration. It is clear that the President’s declaration adheres to decades-old statutes and procedures laid out in federal law, and there is no question that a national crisis exists at our southern border.’
Don’t ever let Sen Young tell you that he cares about the Constitution. He just voted to give away the most important power that Congress has, the power over spending.
When a Democrat takes the presidency, what leg will these Republicans stand on when the president decides to spend billions on climate change or another priority that the Congress doesn’t approve?
Exactly!
Trump emotionally never left grade school. This is the ‘leader of the free world’ speaking.
….
Tweeting Wednesday morning, Trump wailed: “George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!” Trump later told reporters outside the White House that he doesn’t know George Conway, but called him a “wack job.” “I think he’s doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife,” Trump said. “Kellyanne is a wonderful woman, and I call him Mr. Kellyanne, the fact is that he’s doing a tremendous disservice to a wife and family.”
You must admit that the Conways have a strange marriage. George, who is a conservative Republican, knows that Trump is a serial liar with a narcissistic personality disorder. His wife Kellyanne has to defend Trump against what her husband says.
For a most illuminating side-by-side comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJC-L5WtJug
If Jake La Motta was Raging Bull, Donald Trump is Raging Bull Shit.
Here is another great Tweet by our esteemed leader who has the brilliance of a slow-witted cockroach. Trump never gives up having ‘campaign rallies’. HIs poor wounded ego always need a pick-me-up.
…………………………….
Trump blasts McCain:
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at a campaign-style rally in Lima, Ohio. “I didn’t get (a) thank you but that’s OK.”
Opps. Wasn’t a Tweet…a campaign rally. He never speaks decently in either one.
“In everything we do and every action we take, we’re putting America first, and we are putting American workers first, for the first time in a long time,” the President told factory workers yesterday in Lima, Ohio.
Trump was sent by God? How reassuring.
…………………….
Pompeo: It’s ‘Possible’ Trump Was Sent by God to Save Jews
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo believes President Trump may have been sent by God to rescue the Jewish people from Iran, according to an interview he gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network. In an interview aired after Pompeo visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, he was asked whether Trump could be just like the biblical figure Esther, who is said to have saved the Jews with help from God. “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” he responded. He went on to praise the Trump administration for ensuring that “this Jewish state remains.”** “I am confident the Lord is at work here,” he said.++ Pompeo’s remarks came after Trump announced Washington’s decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, territory that was seized from Syria in 1967.
Read it at Christian Broadcasting Network
** “I am confident the Lord is at work here,” he said.**
** isn’t working today.