These days, we’d probably refer to a quote as a sound bite - probably so-called that because it’s a quick bite out of something someone has said and it does sound so modern and so much less pompous than a quote – in any case no one reads anymore. That is probably why, as yet, there is no Dictionary of Sound Bites. This discussion had two objectives: firstly to discover why we are so keen on sayings, sound bites and quotes; secondly to see if that could be done without actually using any quotes!
I suggest that English tribal tradition is mainly verbal. Even though we think of ourselves as a literate people, we had our Dark Ages when writings were only preserved in a few monasteries. Before and through those times, memorable short phrases were found useful for guidance on health, weather, conduct etc. These were handed down from parent to child and became a cornerstone of our verbal culture.
Later (probably in the sixteenth century) another tradition arose of quoting texts from the Bible (ref1) to try to give the weight of divine authority in support of or against a speaker or writer.
With the advent of the printing press the number of such sayings increased rapidly as more and more “useful forms of words” were recognised and their use was extended from survival to intellectual debate.
Immediate support for this view of mine may be found by looking at some definitions; my sources are the OED (ref2), the FOD (ref3), and Roget’s Thesaurus (ref4) was used to test the completeness of my selection. The relevant words and their dictionary definitions are:
folklore (ref2): “the traditional beliefs and stories of a people”
saying (ref2): “a maxim, proverb, adage, etc”
maxim (ref2): “a general truth or rule of conduct expressed in a sentence”
proverb (ref2): “a short pithy saying in general use, held to embody a general truth”
pithy (ref2): “condensed, terse, and forcible”
adage (ref2): “a traditional maxim, a proverb”
saw (ref2): “a proverb, a maxim”
sound bite (ref3): “a short pithy sentence or phrase extracted from a longer speech for use on television or radio” It has also been suggested (ref5) that it can last from between 9 and 15 seconds.
quote (ref2): “cite or appeal to (an author, book, etc) in confirmation of some view”
The common themes throughout all these definitions are tradition and shortness; the latter is essential to make such phrases memorable.
Although legal maxims (usually in Latin) are still in use, the heyday of using quotes is probably past. Even fifty years ago, a character of Charles Morgan said (ref6): "You shouldn’t have quoted … it’s a bad habit nowadays. No one recognizes the quotation and everyone hates you for it."
Related words, which have been excluded from this preliminary study, are cliché, hackneyed, trite, phrase, joke, and idiom.
The healthiest approach would seem to be to regard quotes as a form of verbal (or written) shorthand -- one up on “Everybody knows that …”, and at least two up on the rather pathetic “Y’know”.
If you are going to use them, then please make sure they’re accurate and check the context they’re from. There’s nothing more galling than, say, quoting a line from a poem which your listener knows -- then having them outquote you with a negating line from the same poem.
To summarise, the uses of a quote are
• To continue our verbal cultural tradition;
• Because it says it better than you could;
• To provide a rule of conduct;
• To display that you are well-read;
• To outsmart a verbal opponent;
• To use a language that your verbal opponent may not understand;
• To reinforce your message.
References
1. King James’s Bible (The Authorised Version) was published in 1611; however Cranmer’s Bible (based on Coverdale’s Bible of 1535) was printed in 1540. One of the books is called Proverbs.
2. The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Eighth edition 1990, Oxford University Press.
3. www.thefreedictionary.com/sound+bite from Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006 .
4. Everyman’s Thesaurus of English Words & Phrases, revised from Peter Roget by DC Browning; JM Dent & Sons Ltd 1952.
5. www.thefreedictionary.com/sound+bite from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
6. Charles Morgan, Challenge to Venus, Sullivan, p50. Macmillan, 1957.
