Re: Churchill quotation?

From: Bill Spight (bspight@pacbell.net)
Date: Thu 31 Oct 2002 - 19:59:51 GMT

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    Dear Ray,

    > It's there. It appears that the original quote was "We shape our
    > buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." on October 28, 1943 at
    > a meeting in the House of Lords.
    Many thanks!

    I thought that searching for "build" would get "building" too, but not so. <sigh>

    > I wonder if he restated it at some
    > point or whether it has just become distorted over time.
    >

    I expect that it has become distorted. That is what usually happens. :-)

    Changes in popular quotations would be a good memetics research project, I think. :-)

    Examples:

    1) "We make our tools and our tools make us" http://archivists.ca/publicat/archivar/arch40ab.htm#schwartz

    Joan Schwartz got it wrong, and so did I (I started the second clause with "then").

    > Kenneth Boulding once wrote, "We make our tools, and then they shape us." Stowe Boyd, http://www.cutter.com/research/2002/edge020820.html

     ‘first we make our tools, then they make us’ quoted by Gordon A. Gow, http://www.sfu.ca/~gagow/mcluhan/proposal.htm

     "we shape our tools and they in turn shape us" (quoted in Griffin,
     1991, p. 294). Samuel Ebersole, http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/mcluhan.html The "Griffin" is Griffin, E. (1991). A first look at communication theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    also found at

    http://www.allsands.com/Misc2/technologicalde_ubp_gn.htm

    and

    > We become what
    > we behold. We
    > shape our tools and
    > then our tools shape
    > us.
    > Marshall McLuhan

    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/q141113.html

    Enough! I remembered hearing the quote on the record, "The Medium is the Massage", which I still have. McLuhan said, "We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us."

    It sounds like McLuhan ripped of Churchill. ;-)

    And the variations are of some interest. More later. I have lunch and chores.

    Ciao,

    Bill

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