# Talk:Speech is silver, silence is golden

1804: "Speech might be silver, silence was golden"[1]
1801: " 'speech is silver'—'silvern' he calls it, pedantically—'while silence is golden.' "[2]
I've removed the incorrect image accordingly. Fram (talk) 08:58, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Fram: Ha. Well, this goes to show how important is to make the literary corpus searchable and digitized. Google Books did not exist in 1999 when Wasserstein wrote his piece. Now we can say he was wrong, but it would be WP:OR, wouldn't it? What's the best practice here? How can we indicate to the reader that the reliable, scholarly source is wrong, because our (Wikipedian volunteer) research found more new primary sources? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:26, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
Quietly remove the reference to the 1999 research? We can hardly include it, knowing that it is wrong: but we can't include the reasons why we believe it to be wrong :-( Perhaps hide it in a hidden comment which refers to this discussion? Fram (talk) 13:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
Fram For now I attributed the claim, and I also emailed Wasserstein directly, it would be interesting to see what he thinks about your finds. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:06, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
Fram, I did receive a reply from Wasserstein, but sadly he didn't reply to my second email in which I suggested he posts his comments here himself. He did however say in his initial reply "If you want to put this up on a Wikipage, please let me know and we can perhaps tweak it a little for public consumption.", so I think he is fine with me quoting the relevant parts here.

Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:29, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! However, there is e.g. also this from June 1834 "Speech is silvern, silence is golden"). Now, this seems to be the same source as used bby your correspondent, but from 1834? Perhaps the first book edition was 1836, and this is the first, earlier, magazine publication? I found another one which Google claims is from 1714: "Silence is gold we know and speech is but silver"[3], but this turns out to be from the 1880s.
A true older one, from 1818 (I checked it this time) is [4]: "Discourse is silver, silence is gold". (Also in an 1831 book[5]) Fram (talk) 08:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
Fram, I concur, based on the prefaces, those two works are from 1818 and 1831, respectively. When I have some time I'll email Wasserstein again to see what he thinks about those finds. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:41, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
Fram, I have a reply from him, this time I think he agrees we (you...) found some new and relevant stuff. He also pointed out that "You will note that it is represented there as nothing but a reprint of material from the Researches in Greece of William Martin-Leake (a most interesting soldier, explorer and scholar). That work, or the relevant volume of it, was published earlier still, in 1814." That said, I am not sure what's the best practice of including this information in our article? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:58, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Speech is silver, silence is golden/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Whiteguru (talk · contribs) 06:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Starts GA Review; the review will follow the same sections of the Article. Hopefully we will start soon. --Whiteguru (talk) 06:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

 


### Observations
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar):  b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): 

It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism): 
The link to Megillah 18 is not a link. The correct link appears to be to Brewster's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
Reading Wasserstein on page 257, it is not directly clear about the attribution to Santob de Carrion.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
Please show references and text for Al-Raghib al-Isfahani and the 9th-century writer Al-Jahiz
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias: 

It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.: 
Page created on 27 October 2020
Page has receive 67 edits by 13 editors
90 day page gives tally of 6511 daily views, with an average of 72 views per day
Page considered stable, no edit wars noted
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):  b (appropriate use with suitable captions): 
Sartor resartus; = public domain: copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1926
Overall:
May we attend to the issues raised above? --Whiteguru (talk) 10:54, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Whiteguru, Quick clarification: what do you mean by "Please show references and text for Al-Raghib al-Isfahani and the 9th-century writer Al-Jahiz? This is referenced to Wasserstein's article, pages 244–247.

As for Megillah, this wasn't added by me. I don't understand this term and I asked the editor who added it, User:Paulaszi0, to clarify it, but they are not very active. If they don't reply I guess we can revert their addition. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:25, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Piotrus I found the mention of Brewster in the source cited. If you can simply follow that and update the reference? Thank you. --Whiteguru (talk) 08:30, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Whiteguru, Forgive me, but I don't track, maybe I am tired. Can you link the page / source which mentions Brewster? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:43, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

 
 Passed