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    LOST IN THE WOODS

    Dec 21, 2021 5 minutes
    by ANDREW KOCH

    Winston Churchill once said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting its boots on.”

    Or was it Mark Twain who said that? Or Cordell Hull, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of State…? Sources on the internet can’t agree—and many who share the quote don’t seem all that interested in knowing the truth anyway. They copy it wholesale and pass it along, uninterested (or ill-equipped) to verify if it really came from where it’s said to have.

    In reality, the quote has evolved over time, possibly from Jonathan Swift in 1710 (“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.”). You couldn’t ask for a better case study in the quote’s meaning: Lies spread quickly, without regard for accuracy.

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