Errata: The Quote on the Wall
The idea: a quotation's name is a claim too; a true sentence with the wrong name on it borrows authority it was never given.
Read it
Who is in this book
- Source Ask who would know this best, and whether they have a reason to say it from NewsForge
- Danya a child of the Green Asks "how do we know?"
- Verify Before you defend or share something, stop and trace it back to where it first appeared from NewsForge
- Attest Every claim names its source, and a correction names one too from NewsForge
- Tara a child of the Green Listens longest, speaks last
Every recurring character has a short tune, so you can tell who is on stage before a word is said. The tunes play only when you tap, and the Reading Access sound switch turns them off.
The Honest Page
Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?
True
- The sentence 'not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted' appears in William Bruce Cameron's 1963 book Informal Sociology. The earliest link to Einstein found by researchers is a business book from 1986, with no evidence behind it. Source
- 1986 is thirty-one years after 1955, the year Einstein died, and twenty-three years after 1963.
- A newspaper correction is a public notice about a factual mistake in an earlier article. Source
Stretched
- In the case, the chain from poster to book is traced in one afternoon. What we simplified: Quote researchers sometimes spend years on a single famous sentence, and some can never be traced. Saying 'we could not confirm who said this' is an honest answer.
Made up
- The Green Gazette, the school's targets, Mrs Kerr, Mr Ashworth, the head teacher and the staffroom poster are made up. The quotation, its 1963 source and its 1986 misattribution are real.
Tara’s sentence
The case stops where Tara speaks. Write the sentence you would have said. It stays on this device.
Kept.
Your sentence lives on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Ring the hammer for someone
Pick this book for someone younger. The link carries only the book, and it will wait for them on the Green.