Have you ever attributed something you came up with to someone smarter than yourself? Like, for instance, saying something similar to: “I think it was Mark Twain who said…” when you know darn well it was actually you?
I’ve done it enough times that I’ve begun to ponder the likelihood that Mr. Clemens really said even a fraction of the things that his made-up name has been credited with. To that end, I’ve decided to only attribute smart-sounding things to MY OWN made-up name from this point on.
Here’s one from a few days ago:
”’Tis the action of a fool to place a price on the value of another man’s time.” —Alistair Hoel.
I think the importance of what Alistair was getting at is “value,” rather than “price.” For instance, hiring managers routinely assign a wage to employees—which, in essence, could be construed as a “value.” But I submit—er, Alistair submits—that a wage is merely a price. The value one holds over their own time only includes price as a small factor; for me, my hourly wage (or, “price”) is not enough to make my time at work worthwhile1. But when you factor in the feeling of security and personal-value that a fulfilling job provides, things tip towards balancing out the “value” side of things.
1: this is not because I feel my wage is insufficient; I make more money that I need, it’s just that the value I place on my time is very high.
Brilliant. BUT—if you’re gonna credit Clemens/Twain, you need to "commonize" your language, I think. I don’t see him using " ‘Tis " much.
Winston Churchill is another good one to attribute wise sayings to, and if they’re more homey, just use Will Rogers.
Yeah, it was an oversight. For a brief period of time I considered using Ben Franklin as the source of my maxim, and forgot to excise the ‘Tis when I settled on Sam and Mark.
Liar. (hee)
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