Churchillian Drift

Churchillian Drift
 n.— «Long ago, I coined the term “Churchillian Drift” to describe the process whereby the actual originator of a quotation is often elbowed to one side and replaced by someone more famous. So to Churchill or Napoleon would be ascribed what, actually, a lesser-known political figure had said. The process occurs in all fields.» —“Policing Word Abuse” by Nigel Rees Forbes Aug. 13, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Join the discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

Drift and Drive Derivations

The words drift and drive both come from the same Germanic root that means “to push along.” By the 16th century, the English word drift had come to mean “something that a person is driving at,” or in other words, their purpose or intent. The phrase...

Catch My Drift (episode #1679)

If you work in tech support, you might use snarky slang for problems caused by computer users themselves. There’s the acronym PEBCAK, for example, which stands for Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard. And: a lush poem about the sea inspired by...