[Dragaera] random thoughts on recent (or not) Texts

[Alexx Kay]

> Wikiquote:
> Salt from My Attic (1928), The Mosher Press, Portland, Maine; cited in The
> Yale Book of Quotations (2006) ed. Fred R. Shapiro, p. 705

In my experience, modern books of quotations are very little more reliable
than the internet, which is where most of them get "researched".  On the
other hand, the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale may have a copy of this
book (see below).

> Googlebooks believes in it:
> http://books.google.fm/books/about/Salt_from_my_attic.html?id=SDfhHAAACAAJ
> ... whose 500 copies were made on ...

Hm.  This is suggestive that such a book and author at least exist.  The
"Find in a library" link from there includes the note ""Five hundred
copies of this book on Aurelian paper privately printed by The Mosher
Press for John A. Shedd and the type distributed in the month of August
1928" -- colophon."  Following the links further from that library page
finds only one of them (UNC) that actually has a listing for it in their
on-line catalog (In the Rare Book Collection, unsurprisingly).

> Someone entirely random claims, "John A. Shedd used that in his book "Salt
> from My Attic", published in 1928. But he appears to have been quoting an
> ancestor, Willian Shedd. The saying has also been used by Admiral Grace
> Shedd, who married into the family."

The quote is sometimes attributed to Admiral Grace *Hopper*, who appears
to be no relation to any Shedds.  [She may have said it in a speech, but
seems unlikely to have been the original source.]  With a howler like
that, I am not going to trust the rest of the claim at all.

Alexx

"In winning a fight between halberd and sword-and-shield, the first
 step is to be the guy with the shield."        -- Duke Cariadoc