A while back, in another thread, I pitched a quotation from memory: "It’s not what we don’t know that causes the trouble; it what we know that ain’t so." I said this was one of Josh Billings’. Today, I found more or less the same thing in a book I’m reading, attributed to Artemus Ward. An Internet search just worsened the confusion, bring Will Rogers and Mark Twain in as possible authors (Twain always gets the benefit of orphaned incisive quotations - I’m sure he’d be amused). Will Rogers seemed to win on popularity, but that isn’t a great assurance on the Internet - some of the most prevalent wrong information I know comes from the CIA World Factbook, and is echoed slavishly by a thousand personal and business sites.
However, I did eventually find a site that gave multiple attributions:
http://home.earthlink.net/~altquot/quotations.html
Seems like everyone (except Twain) said it in one form or another, though only Billings has a proper paper reference:

It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us in trouble. It’s the things we know that ain’t so.
—- Artemus Ward (1834-67), U.S. journalist.
It is better to know nothing than to know what ain’t so.
—- H.W. Shaw (Josh Billings)
Josh Billings’ Encyclopaedia of Wit and Wisdom, 1874 [from H.L. Mencken’s Encyclopedia of Quotations]
It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.
—- Will Rogers (1879-1935), U.S. humorist.
Tain’t what a man don’t know that hurts him; it’s what he knows for certain that just ain’t so!
—- Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard (1868-1930), U.S. humorist, journalist.

I seem to have quoted a reasonable memory of the Will Rogers’ version.

So: Does anyone else have an Ain’t Necessarily So story about quotations, words or language?

Grant

Okay, no takers on my Ain’t Necessarily So Story on quotations. Here’s another example from etymology.

The story goes that statues made of poor-quality marble often displayed unsightly pockmarks in their surface. So unscrupulous Roman sculptors and merchants would rub wax into the surface to make it smooth. High quality marbles were therefore advertised as being sine cera, "without wax" - whence the Latin word sincerus, meaning "whole, genuine, pure", and our own sincere.

Nice, isn’t it? But there seems to be no evidence for the practice or the derivation, and the OED assigns the whole story "no probability".

Grant

My Latin teacher, requiescat in pace, would not be amused to learn that the etymology of sincere was contrived on no factual basis from sine cera.

I’m stumped.  I picked those quotes apart for half an hour with a friend, and we can’t figure out what they mean.

Is the point that a person is most hurt by unfounded convictions, and should keep his mind open to possibilities?  

As this is not a joke, I hope some explaining is forthcoming.

It’s the difference between being uninformed (having a gap in your knowledge) and misinformed ("knowing" something that ain’t so).
If you are uninformed, you’re generally aware of the fact, and so won’t make any serious decisions without finding out what you need to know. But if you are misinformed then you are unaware that your knowledge is faulty - you think you know about something that you are actually pretty clueless about - and so you are much more likely to make a foolish decision.

Grant

I see.  It’s what we "know" that ain’t so?  With emphasis on the "so" as well.

The "ain’t" was so jarring I was putting my emphasis on it.  

Yes, I suppose if the first time you run into the idea is with a set of four quotations all containing the word "ain’t", you’re bound to guess that the choice of that word is important.

Grant

I still don’t see how those words convey the message you’re suggesting.  Seems too awkward.

Perhaps when I understand it, I will realize that there was something I thought I knew about language, but that I was incorrect?

[quote author=tamisaac link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#7 date=10/13/02 at 13:43:44]I still don’t see how those words convey the message you’re suggesting.  Seems too awkward.

And I’m struggling to see why you don’t see, so forgive me if I labour the obvious in some way at the expense of the obscure ...
A literal translation of the Artemus Ward example would be: "It ain’t so much [being uninformed] that gets us into trouble. It’s [being misinformed/having misapprehensions]." He’s saying that having "knowledge" resting in your head which is in fact untrue is like having a time-bomb waiting to go off. The implication (not explicitly stated) is that some day you’ll act on that presumed "knowledge" and get into trouble somehow, because the world turns out not to be the way you expected it to be.
As for the awkwardness, there’s a deliberately contrived air of down-home wisdom in there, but I do like the nice poetic rhythm and alliteration of things we know that ain’t so. Obviously other folk liked it too, or they wouldn’t have kept on saying it over and over again!

Grant

[quote author=granthutchison link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#8 date=10/13/02 at 15:51:33]
And I’m struggling to see why you don’t see, so forgive me if I labour the obvious in some way at the expense of the obscure ...

No need to be so serious; did you not perceive the jest in my last comment?

He’s saying that having "knowledge" resting in your head which is in fact untrue is like having a time-bomb waiting to go off. The implication (not explicitly stated) is that some day you’ll act on that presumed "knowledge" and get into trouble somehow, because the world turns out not to be the way you expected it to be.

Of course.

As for the awkwardness, there’s a deliberately contrived air of down-home wisdom in there, but I do like the nice poetic rhythm and alliteration of things we know that ain’t so.

Aaah, the punch is on the so.  That word is where the meaning is filled in—the so, with an elongated and high-then-low intonation, stress on the high part and then dropping off, pushes the "so" into the forefront.  It renders "things-that-ain’t-so," into an entity: false ideas.
Then, knowing those is a problem.
Got it.

Obviously other folk liked it too, or they wouldn’t have kept on saying it over and over again!

Well, that never makes a good argument to me.  Plenty of people say plenty of things for plenty of reasons that I don’t buy.
Cheers!

[quote author=tamisaac link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#9 date=10/13/02 at 16:21:19]It renders "things-that-ain’t-so," into an entity: false ideas.
Then, knowing those is a problem.
Got it.

Good. But I am still baffled - up to now, how were you interpreting the phrase "things we know that ain’t so"?

Grant

[quote author=granthutchison link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#10 date=10/13/02 at 16:56:23]
Good. But I am still baffled - up to now, how were you interpreting the phrase "things we know that ain’t so"?

Try reading the sentence staccato.  Then stress "ain’t" lightly.

And, what I learned that wasn’t so, was that I can reasonably project others’ intonations on a message board.  I’ll bet you have an accent, too.

[quote author=tamisaac link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#12 date=10/13/02 at 17:07:29]I’ll bet you have an accent, too.

Who is without an accent?

[quote author=tamisaac link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#11 date=10/13/02 at 17:03:56]Try reading the sentence staccato.  Then stress "ain’t" lightly.

Nope. No idea where you’re going, here. That just makes the sentence sound incomplete to me: "Things we know that ain’t so ... [hot? - something or other, anyway]."

Grant

[quote author=granthutchison link=board=omni;num=1033773991;start=0#14 date=10/13/02 at 17:48:54]
Nope. No idea where you’re going, here. That just makes the sentence sound incomplete to me: "Things we know that ain’t so ... [hot? - something or other, anyway]."

Sounded incomplete to me too!  That’s why I asked. ::)