Please can you provide web-sites, books or idealy lists of the most
ridiculous statements, such as "a watched kettle never boils" etc.

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Request for Question Clarification by ephraim-ga on 10 Aug 2004 21:59 PDT

I can point you at a book which contains some fantastic examples of
horribly stupid statements. Based on the description of this book at
Amazon, I believe that I have a much older version of it sitting on my
bookshelf (it appears to have been expanded since I bought my copy).

Would this be sufficient, or are you looking for multiple sources?

/ephraim

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Clarification of Question by dtnl42-ga on 10 Aug 2004 22:18 PDT

That's fine - thank you

The book I have in mind is "The 1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said" by
Steven D. Price. You can find it on Amazon at [
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1592282679/qid=1092232244/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-4238165-1310330?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
].

The book description on that site gives the following examples from the book:

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
-Brooke Shields, actress, during an interview to become spokesperson
for a federal government anti-smoking campaign

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates
in the country." -Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C.

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on."
-Samuel Goldwyn, movie producer

"It's no exaggeration to say that the undecided could go one way or another."
-President George W. Bush"

From memory, I remember that the edition I bought (probably about 8
years ago) had quite a few quotes from then-Vice President Dan Quayle.
One of the more awful Quayle quotes was this:

"We offer the party as a big tent. How we do that (recognise the big
tent philosophy) with the platform, the preamble to the platform or
whatnot, that remains to be seen. But that message will have to be
articulated with great clarity."

This quote was considered to be so ridiculous that it was awarded an
Honorable Mention at The Plain English Campaign's annual Foot in Mouth
award.

Foot-In-Mouth award page
[ http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/footinmouth.html ]

Plain English Campaign home page
[ http://www.plainenglish.co.uk ]

Golden Bull awards
[ http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/goldenbull.html]


Somebody who calls herself "Datagirl7" has collected a lists of
horribly mangled statements and dumb comments. Some of these are just
intended to be cute (i.e. children talking about love), but others are
just incredibly awful misuses of the English language (i.e. more
politician quotes). You can find them here: [
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/7474/humor.html ].

Finally, here are some other link to some ridiculous statements: 

[ http://jec.itgo.com/quote.htm ]

[ http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:VjgBD42Qyy0J:www.qwaspolk.com/dumbquotes.htm+%22dan+quayle%22+%22we+offer+the+party+as+a+big+tent%22&hl=en
]


Search Strategy:

I just started with what I remembered of the Dan Quayle quote and let
that take me to other pages with similarly mangled language:

"we offer the party as a big tent" + "dan quayle"
[ ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=%22dan+quayle%22+%22we+offer+the+party+as+a+big+tent%22&btnG=Search
]


I hope this helps you in your search! Feel free to ask for clarification if needed.

/ephraim

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Clarification of Answer by ephraim-ga on 11 Aug 2004 07:18 PDT

Ooops...I just realized that I referred to Dan Quayle as "then" VP.
Should have been "former VP."

/ephraim

That example is more of a proverb than a riduculous statement.  Of
course the kettle will boil.  It just seems to take longer if you sit
there and stare at it rather than occupying your time with something
else.

Just watch the US election campaigns - either party, it doesn't matter.