Hi, Guest!

I was intrigued by your coming to the rescue of the phrase "if it sounds too good to be true…"

Bob C. Cleckler: in Welcome to the Solution to English Illiteracy. The Desperately Needed Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Chapter 1 Illiteracy and Why It Still Exists

"…we live in an age of skepticism. Almost everyone has heard the statement, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true." Although what is presented in this book as the solution to illiteracy may sound too good to be true, it is in fact quite true. It has been proven in practically every nation on earth with an alphabetic language other than English. The reason the first paragraph says can be instead of will be, however, is that many of us believe that it's probably not true if it sounds too good. As a result, we may be tempted to skip ahead, scanning here and there to find something that—without knowing the details—seems to be untrue. Without realizing we are doing so, we often look for a catch—an error or misrepresentation that makes an argument false. We want to quickly decide if we should spend more time on something that seems too good to be true."

The origin of the saying seems to have been captured by

Bartlett, John, comp. 1919. in Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. #3083:

Mathew Henry. 1662-1714. "It is good news, worthy of all acceptation; and yet not too good to be true."

Yours is an interesting point; and the preponderance of quotations agree that the use of "probably is" in current literature backs up your contention; although there are exceptions such as the above and

Philippe Naughton Times Online June 2007:

"There's an old journalistic adage: if a story sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn't."

The saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" is unclear at best, since the second use of the pronoun 'it' in the positive sense inferred by the use of "is" (meaning 'in its current existence') must either refer either to the subject 'it' or the adjectival phrase 'too good to be true'. This leaves the descriptor 'true' referring to the subject (the first 'it') or its adjectival phrase 'too good'. The quotation has the equal option of being completed with either a repeated "too good to be true", which is the long way around trying to say "is untrue", or with the word "true" (even though using "true" would fly in the face of healthy scepticism).

If the former, then regardless of how outrageous the facts being referred to, they are improbable of being true because they are too good. And if the latter, 'it' may very well be true after all. The structure does not allow a clear choice.

Interestingly, the more infrequently used "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't" infers agreement of the negative connotation in both opinions, and hence makes more cohesive sense between the opinions in the quotation. Since one is trying to say it probably is not true because it sounds too good to be so; and to hammer home the point may safely tack "true" onto the second opinion, the negative connotes complete agreement with its usage in the first.

Simplification by just using the opinion, "It sounds too good to be true", without muddying it up by banging a second opinion onto it would seem to clear up the intention.

Mark

_{[ I know, I know. I really gotta find something useful to do.]}

Hi, Import/Export!

Oh no! He made a mistake, too???

After all that comparative English discussion, I missed it. I knew I shoudd'a paid more attention. Dang!

err...What was his mistake exactly?

Thanks for pointing this out for me, and I'm very glad your day is better off now. It's nice to make folks feel good. And hail to you as well.

Yer guest Perfesser,

Mark