Plagiarist - My previous post

Those who follow this blog will know that I go to a bit of effort to try to try not to rip off other people's ideas.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the internet today.

Yesterday I posted this...

     If you love something...

     Set it free...

     If it comes back to you...

     It's probably Stockholm Syndrome.

It was a little joke that occurred to me, that was inspired by an acquaintance the day before, telling me that he thought there was a component of Stockholm Syndrome in relationships.

But today I thought I'd search the net for the notion. Sometimes I ask google questions in plain english. eg "Hey google, do you know any good sourdough recipes?" Sometimes I copy and paste entire pages of stuff. Today I dumped my entire post in and found this tweet from someone named Pieter Rossouw . It's dated 5 days before my post and this is the first I've seen of it.

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If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's probably Stockholm Syndrome.
4:10 PM - 12 Jun 12 via Twitter for iPhone · Embed this Tweet
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Spooky.

Stockholm Syndrome is something 23% of hostages experience (according to wikipedia) whereby hostages end up defending their abductors.

The name relates to something that happened in a bank robbery in 1973. Nearly forty years ago. As far as google and I know, there are no other references that tie Stockholm Syndrome and the "If you love something set it free, if it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was." saying.  

Forty years, then two people come up with the same joke, word for word, five days apart.

I'm going to ask @PRossouw why he tweeted that this week. I've tried all kinds of things to see if there is any link between @PRossouw, my acquaintance, and me, but I cant find a thing. 

Anyway, it seems I plagiarized it without knowing. 

Sorry Pieter.

   

120 things in 20 years is guilty of plagiarism in my previous post.

5 comments:

  1. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt -- Saint Jerome (Comment. in Ecclesiastem)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't understand how that's relevant.

    Am I missing something?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt (language: latin) means "may they perish who have expressed our bright ideas before us" :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ahh, that makes much more sense :)

    google translate englished it to "Who die before we said our".

    I can see why google said that, but your translation means something.

    "Die who said our, before we", might have been better.

    I like it. I'd adopt it as my motto except for the death bit.

    Perhaps "May they always pay for our beer, those who have expressed our bright ideas before us." :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. "May they always pay for our beer, those who have expressed our bright ideas before us." is promising (except before Sumerians because they AFAIK invented both beer and money). Those who nurture our brains shall also distort our bellies, yay!

    ReplyDelete

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