gstafleu

Ah, an inter-Dutch argument . You'll find a lot of hits on Google for "Dan maar de lucht in," though, plus it scans better (one whole dactylus plus an abbreviated one). In addition, given the impossibility of knowing if the guy actually said anything like it, establishing which version is canonical seems hard to do.

Gerard

purple_kathryn

I don't think there's any debate over whether Elizabeth I actually ever existed though

HelpingHand

Not that it really matters to the subject of this debate, but in Van Dales Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal you can find the saying "Dan liever de lucht in". It probably sounds better with the alliteration of liever and lucht.. Anyhow, it seems only 28 of his crew of 31 died in the explosion, so there is a slight possibility one of the survivors actually did hear him say it, or maybe one of the Belgians, who knows?
I've also heard that Churchill never uttered the words "I can promise you nothing but blood and tears", but I'm not sure of that.


Walter

Jeffrey Gibson

I'm not reading Fisk in the same way as you do. But perhaps I'm missing something. Could you point out to me what it is that makes you take Fisk as explicitly expressing surprise to find out, if indeed that's what he acknowledges he did, that the Tilbury speech was not real?

And while I've "got you" , can you tell me if you still have your editorial remarks on my article on the story of the wilderness testing of Jesus. If so, could you please send them to me again? Thanks.

Jeffrey