The KellyGram

Copyright law is fairly complex but, basically, whatever you write is automatically copyrighted, from the moment you write it, and everyone else is precluded from using it. You don’t have to register your work, nor do you even need the word "Copyright," nor the © symbol.

There are, however, some benefits to registration, which is done through the Library of Congress. For example:

• It’s necessary in order to file suit in the U.S.
• It allows for recovery of statutory damages and attorney fees.
• It establishes a public record of the copyright claim for authentication and evidentiary purposes.
• It becomes prima facie evidence of ownership, originality and validity.

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In her book, The Last Word: A Treasury of Women's Quotations, (Prentice-Hall, 1992), Carolyn Warner revealed why, in 40 years on the speaking circuit, she never had the slightest fear of the podium. “One of the most significant reasons,” she wrote, “is because I never go up there alone. I always take a variety of people with me—people whose words or thoughts or deeds comfort me, inspire me, stimulate me.”

She continues: “I have never found a better way to enhance the communications process than by reinforcing the points or concepts I wish to make with timely, memorable quotations.” That’s sound advice for every speaker. Well-chosen quotations can enliven your presentation, illustrate your point, change your pace, get attention, trigger emotion, and add humor.

Quotations are also an excellent means of reinforcing your message. In selecting quotes that support your position, especially when made by recognized experts in the field, you’re doing what preacher and author Dr. D. James Kennedy calls “marshaling your authorities.”

Good for Laughs

Every speaker knows the value of humor in a speech, no matter how serious the subject. There’s no better way to get an audience on your side than with a few good laughs. But jokes can be risky, and some speakers lack that special knack of telling them well. Most of us have probably had the dreaded experience of telling a favorite joke, only to be greeted with—silence!

Quotations can be far more effective than jokes to get audiences laughing, and they’re usually a lot shorter. Few people can resist laughing at a one-liner from an Erma Bombeck or a Yogi Berra.

Birth of a Collection (or Obsession)

I began collecting quotations many years ago. As the editor/publisher of a newspaper, I needed to fill holes when I ran out of copy. Quotes seemed a good answer, so I bought a couple of volumes. Then a friend asked for some quotations to enliven his seminar materials, and I was on my way. Bookstores became my favorite haunt and I quickly passed the 100-volume mark. Today, I own nearly 400 volumes, which include about one-and-a-half million quotes.

After selling my newspaper, I began a custom newsletter business. Hundreds of issues later, my collection remains enormously helpful, and I also use it regularly in my public speaking and speech writing activities. Two books of quotations I compiled, In Celebration of Children (1991), and The Tremendous Power of Prayer (2000), have been published, the latter winning a national award in 2001. A third book, Worth Repeating: More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotations, will be released in May 2003.

Who Makes the Call?

Exactly what qualifies a statement as a quotation? And who assigns it that lofty status? Isaac Asimov, in his Book of Science and Nature Quotations, speculated on the answers to those questions.

“There are five billion people on Earth,” he wrote, “and I should guess that at any given moment one or two billion of us are speaking. And I should further guess that virtually nothing anyone says is memorable....There are times, however, when someone turns a phrase that seems so clever or so apt or so enlightening or so true, that the statement flies from person to person and gives pleasure at each passage. The statement becomes a quotation.”

That explanation aside, using quotations has long been a common practice for writers and speakers. In 1932, author Dorothy L. Sayers, with tongue in cheek, observed: “I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking.” Well, that may be one reason to use quotes, but there are far better ones, many of them outlined above.

There’s one more very practical reason to use quotations. According to the famous 18th century English artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, “He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will be soon reduced from mere barrenness to the poorest of all imitations: he will be obliged to imitate himself.”

That’s good advice indeed—and you may quote me!

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LINGUISTIC ABSURDITIES

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In today’s world of political correctness, otherwise known as The PC (uh) Movement, we offer the following translations to help our readers avoid running afoul of the PC Police:

• Processed Tree Carcass Book
• Botanical Companions Flowers
• Strategic Misrepresentation Lies
• Discretionary Fragrance Perfume
• Non-Discretionary Fragrance Body Odor
• Cosmetically Different Ugly
• Pharmacological Preference Drug Addiction
• Terminal Inconvenience Death
• Domestic Incarceration Survivor Housewife
• Ethically Disoriented Dishonest
• Involuntarily Leisured Fired
• Motivationally Dispossessed Lazy
• Differently Qualified Incompetent
• Chemically Inconvenienced Drunk
• Nontraditional Shopper Shoplifter
• Stolen Nonhuman Animal Fibers Wool

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SMILE AWHILE

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The Muther of All Typos – Part II

We didn’t think anyone could top the story in our last issue about a young man who had his mother’s name tattooed on his chest – and misspelled it! Then we learned of a Florida group that planned to honor actor James Earl Jones by presenting him with a plaque at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. Unfortunately, the plaque read: "Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive." Ray, of course, was King’s assassin.

(Source: Parade)

Try Looking These Up in Your Funk & Wagnalls

The following are some new words we’d like to see added to the dictionary:

• Aquadextrous (ak wa deks’trus) adj. Having the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.
• Carperpetuation (kar’ pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching down and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
• Elbonics (el bon’ iks) n. The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater or on an airplane.
• Elecelleration (el e cel er ay’ shun) n. The mistaken notion that the more you press an elevator button the sooner it will arrive.
• Lactomangulation (lak’ toe man gu lay’ shun) n. Manhandling the "Open Here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to the "illegal" side.