IN CONTEXT—A GENEALOGY OF ATTRIBUTION

This is a chronology of attribution in print and makes no claim as to the origin of the thought beyond what appears self-evident.

1887 OSCAR WILDE

The Canterville Ghost (see above).

1942 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (attributed)

Readers Digest, (November 1942): "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." [unsourced]

Repeated in Treasury of Humorous Quotations (Esar & Bentley), 1954. [also unsourced]

Repeated in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1999 p.521, under the heading Misquotations :

1944 BERTRAND RUSSELL

Saturday Evening Post, (3 June 1944): "It is a misfortune for Anglo-American friendship that the two countries are supposed to have a common language".

1954 DYLAN THOMAS

Quite Early One Morning, (1954) 

A collection of essays and stories. In A Visit To America, p.146, European writers and scholars in America were, he said : "up against the barrier of a common language".

Repeated in a radio talk prepared shortly before his death and published after it in The Listener, (April 1954).

1987 WINSTON CHURCHILL (falsely attributed)

The Times, 26 January 1987; The European, 22 November 1991 : "Winston Churchill said our two countries were divided by a common language."

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Acknowledgement

Special thanks to Nigel Rees, host of the BBC Radio quiz program "Quote ... Unquote", for use of his original research that forms a major part of this chronology.