Making the rounds again is an off-color piece of “Churchillian Drift.” Years ago, columnist Jonah Goldberg greeted its last appearance by calling it “A Thorny Porn-y Issue.” Porn-y maybe, Thorny not. Winston Churchill never said anything like it.
For connoisseurs of made-up Churchill quotations, here’s the alleged exchange. Sir Winston says to a woman at a social event: “Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?” The lady stammers: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill. Well, I suppose….”
Churchill interrupts: “Would you sleep with me for a fiver?” She responds hotly: “What kind of woman do you think I am?!”…
The historian Christopher Harmon capably answers a question on the origin of these famous expressions, and kindly asks me to confirm his findings. They are right as usual. (Dr. Harmon wrote a frequently cited monograph, “Are We Beasts?” Churchill on the Moral Question of World War II “Area Bombing.” His five books include the graduate-level textbook Terrorism Today .)
Special RelationshipChris Harmon writes:
“Special relationship” appears several times (and in surprising ways) in Churchill’s 1946 Fulton speech, “The Sinews of Peace.” It is important never to say that it was coined there. …
Churchillian Drift is just the ticket. I have been looking for a term to describe the numerous potted, inaccurate Churchill quotes. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its trousers on.” That is big right now on Twitter. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Everybody uses that one repeatedly.
“If you’e going through hell, keep going.” No one knows who said that, but it wasn’t Churchill. Then there is: “If I were your husband, I’d drink it.”…
