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What Did Mark Twain Say And How Did He Say It?

Sep 12, 2014
by Caroline Miller
censure versus censorship, Mark Twain, wish tense
16 Comments

Recently, a Facebook friend shared a quote attributed to — but not proven to be — by Mark Twain: “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”  I wrote back that I could make neither heads nor tails of this remark. The young woman replied by way of explanation:

 I think it’s a fair analogy. Often censorship is championed by those who simply don’t have the maturity to handle the material. To stick with the analogy, if you don’t have the teeth, then don’t eat the steak. But don’t tell anyone else what they can or can’t eat.

Her explanation might be nearer the mark if censure had been used instead of censorship.   Censorship means  to cut out offending parts as when segments of a book or a film are edited. Hence, the sentence as it stand reads:   “To cut something out is telling a man he can’t have a steak because a baby can’t chew it.”  Censure is nearer the interpretation as it means to criticize, judge, to object to…” I’m guessing the sentence is meant to say:  To censure a man for eating steak because a baby can’t chew it, is wrong. 

Unfortunately, the structure of the sentence adds to the confusion.  It frames the idea as a definition.  Censorship =  telling a man he can’t  have steak, which, of course, it isn’t. 

 If I’m being too much a grammarian, I plead guilty.  I know  language needs to be fluid and  as an example of my tolerance, I’ve  swallowed and smiled through countless violations of the subjunctive:   “I wish I were,” is  the correct form in the wish tense, even though the subject is singular and the verb is plural.  “I wish I was,” is common in today’s vernacular but it’s grammatically incorrect.  Words do have meaning and if used improperly they become gibberish.  A little respect for our language, please.   

As for the original question that started this Facebook discussion — whether or not Mark Twain wrote the offending quote — I know where I’d put my money.   Mark Twain was one of America’s greatest master of words.  I’ll give odds he never said or wrote the sentence. 

Mark Twain

Mark Twain courtesy of catedu.es

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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16 Comments
  1. Christine Webb September 12, 2014 at 8:40 am Reply
    Guilty as charged! :) However, I'm sorry to say, it doesn't help that the words to that ol' time favorite, "Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton," come to mind more quickly than the rules of grammar, most of which were patiently presented by numerous, dedicated English teachers throughout my formative years. Admittedly, I stand on shaky ground when it comes to always knowing which tense is the proper one to use, but I suspect you have more patience with these common, everyday faux pas, than do I. To my chagrin, I sometimes hear, "I should have went," which is a phrase that is capable of curling my toes and rather than swallowing and smiling, I can do no more than roll my eyes and correct. I try to be kind and considerate; however, my grandchildren will learn to state their regrets in the proper tense. My 7 year old grandson chose to dress as Mark Twain for Famous Person Day. Think Mr. Twain would get a chuckle knowing his legacy and love of language lives on through this little boy and his grandmother... Thanks, again, for your blogs, Caroline. Am always left with something to ponder and quite often, with a smile.
    • Caroline Miller September 12, 2014 at 9:39 am Reply
      No charges. Just observations. To be honest, I suspect everyone knows what the saying means or it wouldn't have made it to Tee Shirt status. But, a few blue haired grammarians won't understand and at first, I didn't. So, if the goal of speech and writing is to communicate, knowing grammar doesn't hurt. As to your grandson -- I admire his choice of character. Mark Twain lives and doesn't that make us all happy?
  2. Pete Paradiso September 12, 2014 at 8:51 am Reply
    If you say or write the following: "Socrates wrote on love," others immediately will point out your ignorance: it is universally agreed that Socrates wrote nothing ... Any attempt to turn Socrates the speaker into a writer is met with critical resistance, even when what he "said" makes little sense grammatically ... If it is true he wrote nothing, we have inherited an important philosophical tradition entirely based on hearsay ... Today the distinction between "said" and "wrote" is narrowing, and grammar is collateral damage ... Am I writing or saying the words I'm about to post here? ... In my mind I'm saying them, in your mind I'm writing them ...
    • Caroline Miller September 12, 2014 at 9:41 am Reply
      And in the end, other minds will make sense of what you write. A bit of a miracle, isn't it? But grammar helps if communication is the goal.
  3. Susan Stoner September 12, 2014 at 3:48 pm Reply
    The origin of a slightly different version, according to Wikiquotes...appears to be Robert Heinlein: Heinlein: "How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show — it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak." Robert A. Heinlein in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950); this may be the origin of a remark which in recent years has sometimes become mis-attributed to Mark Twain: Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
    • Caroline Miller September 12, 2014 at 4:10 pm Reply
      Excellent bit of sharing, Susan. Thank you. And may I point out that Heinlein makes his comparison a simile, using the work "like" to avoid the error of the equation. A bit pedantic but I couldn't resist.
  4. margaret September 12, 2014 at 4:30 pm Reply
    I read the quote like this: Mark Twain is railing against censorship because he thinks it's like banning steak from say, supermarkets in case a purchaser feeds it to a baby - the equivalent of say, banning Lolita from public libraries just in case an immature reader borrows it ...
    • Caroline Miller September 12, 2014 at 7:05 pm Reply
      Interesting take. Thanks, Margaret.
  5. Pete Paradiso September 12, 2014 at 6:08 pm Reply
    Fascinating ... Well, I don't have Heinlein's text, because the last time I read Heinlein was ... never ... Still, if we accept the analogy in Heinlein's form (I think it must be an analogy and not a simile, because the phrase is part of a larger argument against censorship), then we are faced with the following scenario: Someone reads Heinlein, willfully garbles the phrase and then attributes it to Twain in support of censorship ... This in itself is ironic, as Twain today among the most censored and censured of classical American writers ... Why force Twain to write something he never wrote? Does the wearer of the Twain tee-shirt support the restoration of the "n"-word in our classroom readings? ... Whatever the motivation, the point I tried to raise in my previous post remains: Grammar is authority ... Socrates can never have misspoken, the scribe must have written it down wrong, even if that scribe is Plato ... Twain can never have written such a sentence, otherwise he long ago would have been regarded a second-rate writer, much as Heinlein is, I suspect ...
    • Caroline Miller September 12, 2014 at 7:12 pm Reply
      Well, Pete, isn't simile an analogy of sorts? But point taken... except, I like Heinlein.
  6. Pete Paradiso September 14, 2014 at 5:57 pm Reply
    Well, it seems I must wrestle the title of pedant from you, but it isn't much a contest, most readers already have recognized I'm a Casaubon to your Dorothea ... When I was green in my grad school days, there actually was a lot of debate surrounding the question of whether a local figure of speech (simile as image) is in fact a rhetorical strategy (analogy as argument) ... Umberto Eco led the way by announcing that "semiotics is anything that can be used to lie," but many post-modern critics already (early 1970s) understood fiction to be a complex lie that persuades us, somehow, it is truth ... It is no small matter when Cordelia criticizes rhetoric as "that glib and oily art," while subtly manipulating Lear into undividing his kingdom ...
    • Caroline Miller September 14, 2014 at 6:29 pm Reply
      Well as to Casaubon/ Dorthea, I doubt there is much of an age difference in our case. As to Umberto Eco, what I know of him is that I have tried to buy Fouclout's Pendulum on more than one occasion and found the shelf empty. Actually was in Powell's bookstore yesterday for that very purpose so the reference is startling. I agree with Cordelia that language is a glib and oil art but that is what I love about it.
  7. Pete Paradiso September 14, 2014 at 7:32 pm Reply
    "It's not the men in my life, but the life in my men" -- I think my Casaubon-persona succeeds by failing, hahaha ... Eco has great fun with his Casaubon and turns him into an Italian scholar -- but in the realm of detective stories, if that's what his novel can be called, I much prefer Poe's pendulums and purloined letters ...
    • Caroline Miller September 15, 2014 at 7:29 am Reply
      Very difficult to beat Poe.
  8. Alan in NC May 26, 2024 at 9:55 am Reply
    I just came across this thread while trying to verify the attribution of that quote to Twain. I can’t resist chiming-in, even though I’m an engineer, not a grammarian. I read the quote as being a simile with the “like” omitted (which perhaps makes it a metaphor?). At any rate, speech is consumed, just as food is, so I believe “censor” vs “censure” was an appropriate word choice by the original utterer of the quote.
    • Caroline Miller May 26, 2024 at 10:58 am Reply
      Welcom to my world, Alan. As for your interpretation I do not doubt that a majority would agree with you in terms of the passage's intent. I will not censure you for your opinion. Besides, it's been 10 years since I wrote that blog. Language and usage have moved on. None the less, I stand by my opinion. Mark Twain would never had written or said it. Many thanks for stopping by. The window is always open.

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Contact Caroline at

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Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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