Publisher's Synopsis
From the author of the best-selling "Guinness Dictionary of Poisonous Quotes", comes a unique collection of intentional and often witty reworkings of hundreds of well-known sayings, catchphrases and quotations.;Taking as its inspiration Dorothy Parker's celebrated deliberate misquotation "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think", "The Guinness Dictionary of Misquotations" cites an original quotation and follows it with a chronological list of sometimes irreverent modifications.;Thus Seneca's well-known "All art is an imitation of nature" is followed by Cervantes' lesser-known version "Good painters imitate nature. Bad ones vomit it", together with other amusing and scurrilous variants. Here, too, are some unusual versions of some classic quotes. "Gentlemen prefer blondes" becomes "Genitals prefer blondes" and "Gentlemen prefer blondes because they get dirty quicker".;"The Guinness Dictionary of Misquotations" also traces some well-known sayings to an unexpected source. For instance, Shakespeare's oft-quoted "All the world's a stage..." from "As You Like It" is predated by over a thousand years by Palladas' "All life is a stage and a play, so learn to play your part".;The book will also feature a number of thematic spreads looking at what writers and graffitti artists have done with advertising slogans and film titles. The famous "polo mint" slogan, "the mint with the hole" resurfaced in somewhat amended form as "the hole with the mint..." to describe the Welsh village of Llantrisant, where the Royal Mint relocated in the 1980s.;"The Guinness Dictionary of Misquotations" provides a useful source of unusual and rarely anthologised quotations for speechwriters, broadcasters and journalists. It will appeal to anyone interested in the history and development of some of the world's most famous sayings and to anyone who revels in verbal dexterity and imaginative and playful use of language.
