Talk:Speech is silver, silence is golden

First use in English?

• 1804: "Speech might be silver, silence was golden"[1]
• 1801: " 'speech is silver'—'silvern' he calls it, pedantically—'while silence is golden.' "[2]

I've removed the incorrect image accordingly. Fram (talk) 08:58, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Fram: Ha. Well, this goes to show how important is to make the literary corpus searchable and digitized. Google Books did not exist in 1999 when Wasserstein wrote his piece. Now we can say he was wrong, but it would be WP:OR, wouldn't it? What's the best practice here? How can we indicate to the reader that the reliable, scholarly source is wrong, because our (Wikipedian volunteer) research found more new primary sources? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:26, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Quietly remove the reference to the 1999 research? We can hardly include it, knowing that it is wrong: but we can't include the reasons why we believe it to be wrong :-( Perhaps hide it in a hidden comment which refers to this discussion? Fram (talk) 13:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Fram For now I attributed the claim, and I also emailed Wasserstein directly, it would be interesting to see what he thinks about your finds. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:06, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Fram, I did receive a reply from Wasserstein, but sadly he didn't reply to my second email in which I suggested he posts his comments here himself. He did however say in his initial reply "If you want to put this up on a Wikipage, please let me know and we can perhaps tweak it a little for public consumption.", so I think he is fine with me quoting the relevant parts here.

“ You sent me an indication of two earlier occurrences of the expression. One was apparently dated 1801 and the other 1804. Both come from Google Books. I cannot see the actual texts in question directly because of technical aspects of Wikipedia editing pages that you sent me. However, it takes little effort to find the two quotations at issue. ”

“ The first, allegedly dated 1801 (so Google Books tells your colleague), is from a work by Charles Kingsley called Alton Locke. Kingsley (who wrote, among many other works, also the wonderful Water Babies) published Alton Locke in 1849. More importantly, he was born in 1819. He could not, therefore, have published Alton Locke (which is presented as an autobiography but is in fact a novel) in 1801. More significantly still, a glance at the context of the expression in his work shows that Kingsley, writing a decade after Carlyle, is actually quoting Carlyle in referring to our expression (He writes: <One of the few rational things I have met with, Eleanor, in the works of your very objectionable pet Mr. Carlyle – though indeed his style is too intolerable to have allowed me to read much - is the remark that “speech is silver” – “silvern” he calls it, pedantically – “while silence is golden”>). I don’t know where the date 1801 in your colleague’s research comes from. It looks like an error. I wonder whether <1801> might be a slip: the title-page of the 1850 edition (The actual publication date is given sometimes as 1849, sometimes as 1850) shows the date as <MDCCCL.> Perhaps the L was misread by someone or something as an <I>. But that is just a passing thought. ”

“ The second alleged occurrence is dated by your colleague to 1804, and attributed to one R. Bagshaw in a speech recorded in Parliamentary Debates of that year. The suggestion that Bagshaw was the author or speaker of the expression is wrong and appears to come from Google Books’ way of presenting its material. Bagshaw was actually one of the printers/publishers of the long series of Parliamentary Debates. This wonderful series of records of debates in the British parliament indeed began publication around 1804, but it continued for many decades thereafter, surviving in different form to this day. A glance at the speech in question using the more up-to-date search engine of Hansard (https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/Contributions?startDate=1800-01-01&endDate=2020-10-28&searchTerm=%22Speech%20might%20be%20silver%2C%20silence%20was%20golden%22&partial=False) shows that our phrase indeed occurs in a speech in Parliament. But that speech was delivered by the then Prime Minister, the Earl of Salisbury, in the House of Lords on 5 July 1895. (In fact an earlier occurrence in Parliament is also recorded, for the year 1875, but while that is earlier than the example you cite, it is also no earlier than Carlyle.) There does not seem to be any occurrence in 1804. ”

“ I am afraid, therefore, that your colleague’s research is wrong. It shows that the expression was used on at least two (actually I suspect more than two) further occasions during the nineteenth century, but not that it was used before 1840. ”

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:29, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! However, there is e.g. also this from June 1834 "Speech is silvern, silence is golden"). Now, this seems to be the same source as used bby your correspondent, but from 1834? Perhaps the first book edition was 1836, and this is the first, earlier, magazine publication? I found another one which Google claims is from 1714: "Silence is gold we know and speech is but silver"[3], but this turns out to be from the 1880s.

A true older one, from 1818 (I checked it this time) is [4]: "Discourse is silver, silence is gold". (Also in an 1831 book[5]) Fram (talk) 08:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Fram, I concur, based on the prefaces, those two works are from 1818 and 1831, respectively. When I have some time I'll email Wasserstein again to see what he thinks about those finds. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:41, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Fram, I have a reply from him, this time I think he agrees we (you...) found some new and relevant stuff. He also pointed out that "You will note that it is represented there as nothing but a reprint of material from the Researches in Greece of William Martin-Leake (a most interesting soldier, explorer and scholar). That work, or the relevant volume of it, was published earlier still, in 1814." That said, I am not sure what's the best practice of including this information in our article? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:58, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Speech is silver, silence is golden/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Whiteguru (talk · contribs) 06:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Starts GA Review; the review will follow the same sections of the Article. Hopefully we will start soon. --Whiteguru (talk) 06:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

---

 

Observations

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

1. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

• The link to Megillah 18 is not a link. The correct link appears to be to Brewster's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
• Reading Wasserstein on page 257, it is not directly clear about the attribution to Santob de Carrion.

1. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

• Please show references and text for Al-Raghib al-Isfahani and the 9th-century writer Al-Jahiz

1. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

1. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

• Page created on 27 October 2020
• Page has receive 67 edits by 13 editors
• 90 day page gives tally of 6511 daily views, with an average of 72 views per day
• Page considered stable, no edit wars noted

1. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

• Sartor resartus; = public domain: copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1926

1. Overall:

• May we attend to the issues raised above? --Whiteguru (talk) 10:54, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  Whiteguru, Quick clarification: what do you mean by "Please show references and text for Al-Raghib al-Isfahani and the 9th-century writer Al-Jahiz? This is referenced to Wasserstein's article, pages 244–247.

Resolved

• As for Megillah, this wasn't added by me. I don't understand this term and I asked the editor who added it, User:Paulaszi0, to clarify it, but they are not very active. If they don't reply I guess we can revert their addition. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:25, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Piotrus I found the mention of Brewster in the source cited. If you can simply follow that and update the reference? Thank you. --Whiteguru (talk) 08:30, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  Whiteguru, Forgive me, but I don't track, maybe I am tired. Can you link the page / source which mentions Brewster? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:43, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

 

 Passed

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Desertarun (talk) 14:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the proverb speech is silver, silence is golden has been attributed to "wise men of old", and it has been traced to Arabic texts over a millennium old? Source: Wasserstein (1999)

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole

Improved to Good Article status by Piotrus (talk). Self-nominated at 07:30, 21 May 2021 (UTC).

GA passed 19 May; long enough; within policy. Hook is 170 characters; broadly interesting; and has citation. QPQ done. Offline reference AGF. FunkyCanute (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2021 (UTC)