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. …
