"I do not think it means what you think it means."

For someone who wasn't an English major, I have quite a few language pet peeves. Among them is using a quotation for a meaning quite different than the original speaker intended. The misquoter is either being disingenuous or being ignorant. A few days ago, the Senate passed a bill to construct a fence along the American-Mexican border. I will skip over the question of if you want security, why not build a fence along the American-Canadian border, a border that sees frequent contraband smuggling and the occasional terrorist crossing. Senator Jeff Sessions said about the bill, "Good fences make good neighbors, fences don't make bad neighbors." He was paraphrasing a line from Robert Frost's poem, "Mending Wall". The poem is about two neighbors and how the fences keeps them separate, both physically and metaphorically. One of the neighbors keeps saying, "Good fences make good neighbors," but it is evident that the fence actually makes them bad neighbors. By the way, for those people who think the Great Wall of China kept people out, I would recommend reading Penn professor Arthur Waldron's book, "The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth" and think about those pesky Mongols and Manchus.

Another quotation that bugs me is when people talk about "yelling fire in a crowded theater." Presumably, a person can't utter something true because it would cause a greater danger; in this case, the panic would cause a stampede to the exits and more injuries would result than the alternative of the entire audience being cooked. The quote is from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." (Emphasis added.) 249 U.S. at 52. Everyone forgets that falsely word. It would seem to be about someone uttering something untrue and creating a danger where none exists. The Court's holding was that freedom of speech was dependent on the circumstances, creating the clear and present danger test. Speech can be controlled if it creates a clear and present danger. A person can't distribute pamphlets encouraging resisting the draft, if it's the middle of World War I, which was what Schenck was doing. Of course, if there is a fire in a theatre, it would be appropriate to tell people. Well, at the very least, if I'm a theater, and if there's a fire, tell me, and I'll yell "Fire!" and take the blame.