Hidden treasures...

11/14/2014

When I first saw this Father's Day card, I was immediately suspicious of the quote. However, it turns out I was completely wrong. Shows what I know. Yes, this is a quote from Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner" (1928), albeit with some liberties taken. The full quote (from Chapter 6) being: "Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn't matter a bit, as it didn't on such a happy afternoon, and he thought that if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything that there was to be known, and he would be able to tell Pooh, who wasn't quite sure about some of it." Beautiful.

2 Comments

Mr Blobby

11/20/2014 07:38:02 am

While it's similar, I think the changes completely alter the whimsical, reflective, speculative nature of the original. Changes it from future conditional to present conditional (or something). I think it's a bastardization.

PoohMisquoted link

12/30/2014 05:01:56 am

I have to concur. I have been rather liberal in my interpretation about what I count as a genuine Pooh quote. This is in part an attempt to not be too much of an asshat about pointing out other people's citation failures. I'm very prone to typographic errors myself, so don't want to be the first to start throwing those particular stones. And I'm comfortable with a little bit of artistic licence in the manufacture of saccharin greeting cards, so I've tended to overlook minor changes in wording that do not muck around with general intent too much. However, you make a fine point! It's these nuances of language that give Milne's writing a particular tone, which, when missing, getting the possible-misquotation warning bells ringing.

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