False attribution explained

False attribution may refer to:

• Misattribution in general, when a quotation or work is accidentally, traditionally, or based on bad information attributed to the wrong person or group
• A specific fallacy where an advocate appeals to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased, or fabricated source in support of an argument.^[1]

Incorrect identification of source

One particular case of misattribution is the Matthew effect. A quotation is often attributed to someone more famous than the real author. This leads the quotation to be more famous, but the real author to be forgotten (see also: obliteration by incorporation and Churchillian Drift).^[2]

Such misattributions may originate as a sort of fallacious argument, if use of the quotation is meant to be persuasive, and attachment to a more famous person (whether intentionally or through misremembering) would lend it more authority.

In Jewish biblical studies, an entire group of falsely-attributed books is known as the pseudepigrapha.

Fallacy

A fraudulent advocate may go so far as to fabricate a source in order to support a claim. For example, the "Levitt Institute" was a fake organisation created in 2009 solely for the purposes of (successfully) fooling the Australian media into reporting that Sydney was Australia’s most naive city.^[3]

Contextomy (quoting out of context) is a type of false attribution.^[4]

See also

• Fake news

Further reading

• Book: Hemingway Didn't Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations . Garson O'Toole . 2017 . Little A . 978-1503933408 .

External links

• Quote Investigator

Notes and References

1. https://www.scribd.com/doc/8009498/HUMBUG-eBook-by-Jef-Clark-and-Theo-Clark Humbug! The skeptic’s field guide to spotting fallacies in thinking
2. 10.1063/1.1768652. Could Feynman Have Said This?. 2004. Mermin, N. David. Physics Today. 57. 5. 10–11. 2004PhT....57e..10M. free.
3. Web site: Deception Detection Deficiency . Media Watch . 2009-09-27 . 2023-12-06 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211216072721/https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/deception-detection-deficiency/9974778 . 2021-12-16 . live.
4. 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2005.tb02675.x. Quoted Out of Context: Contextomy and Its Consequences. Journal of Communication. 55. 2. 330–346. 2005. McGlone. Matthew S..