Nigel Rees
Nigel Rees
Nigel Reesis an English writer and broadcaster, best known for devising and hosting the long-running Radio 4 panel game Quote... Unquoteand as the author of more than fifty books – mostly works of reference on language, and humour in language...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth5 June 1944
deeds positive
You wish to put a positive construction on your deeds and words.
jobs mind wish
My job involves searching for 'lost' quotations - that is, trying to find out who came up with a quotable saying that lingers in someone's mind and which they wish to use for their own purpose and which they cannot find in conventional dictionaries of quotation.
laughter monopoly
How come there's only one Monopolies Commission?
law source quotations
I am only too aware that I am open to Rees's Second Law of Quotation: However sure you are that you have attributed a quotation correctly, an earlier source will be pointed out to you.
jobs doe workplace
Euphemism in the workplace does not end with job descriptions. It reaches a pusillanimous peak at the other end of the work process - in dismissal.
college ethos oxford
I got into New College, Oxford. The ethos was that you could work - or not.
age tape recorders
I was broadcast-struck from an early age; I had saved up for a tape recorder and started making programmes.
doctors looks spin-doctors
It is part of politics to make things look better than they really are. What is a spin doctor but a serial euphemiser?
people way want
People will say what they want to say, in the way they want to.
rain games fields
I was absolutely a non-starter at games. My report for rugby said, 'Nigel's chief contribution is his presence on the field.' I used to pray for rain and sometimes it did rain - and we played anyway.
father taken mean
My toils in the quotation field have led me to formulate two or three laws about the way people use and abuse quotations. My first law is: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw - which I don't mean to be taken literally, but as a general observation of the habit people have of attaching remarks to the nearest obvious speaker. Churchill, Wilde, Orson Welles and Alexander Woollcott are other useful figures upon whom to father remarks when you don't know who really said them.
law doubt firsts
Rees's First Law of Quotations: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to George Bernard Shaw.
taken half size
Lord Castlerosse was taken to task by Nancy Astor over the size of his stomach. 'What would you say if that was on a woman?' she asked, pointedly. 'Half an hour ago it was,' he replied.
school class play
I was terribly shy and never said anything in class. Then I started getting into school plays. When you've got words to say, you've got a sort of armour.