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    Missing the mongrel

    Jun 26, 2022 4 minutes
    by PAUL THOMAS

    An obscure but enduring sub-subcategory of English literature is “Things Mark Twain didn’t say or write but are almost invariably attributed to him.”

    Twain’s greatest mishits include: “History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme.” It seems authorship actually belongs to Austro-American psychoanalyst Theodor Reik, a protégé of Sigmund Freud. In a 1965 essay, Reik wrote, “It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.”

    Some rhyming history: in 2004, the All Blacks ended their Tri-Nations campaign by losing to the Wallabies in Sydney and getting hammered 40-26 by the Springboks in Johannesburg. In 2021, the All Blacks wound up their Northern Hemisphere tour by losing to Ireland and getting hammered

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