It is a truth universally acknowledged that great words will be misquoted

Afalse quotation can travel halfway around the world before the real one has got its boots on. What better proof than this aphorism itself? Though often attributed to Mark Twain, careful scholarship has revealed that it actually evolved gradually through numerous variations written by many hands over the course of several hundred years (being credited along the way to Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson and a “Chinese proverb”). As Oscar Wilde once said, “it’s a funny old world”.

The scholars at the Bank of England, whom I can’t help imagining as grim Dickensian bean-counters but who I’m sure are very nice, may struggle to see the amusing side. Their new £10 note featuring Jane Austen bears a quotation from Pride and Prejudice in which Caroline Bingley says: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” The words are accurate, but ironic: Austen fans have pointed out that Miss Bingley is trying to impress Mr Darcy, has little interest in books, and throws hers aside in the next paragraph.

Unfortunately, similar misuses are routine. We quote Shakespeare to brand a difficult time a “winter of discontent”, forgetting that in Richard III this winter was already giving way to “glorious summer”. We cry “carpe diem!” – seize the day! – to justify staying out too late or going on a spontaneous holiday, when Horace probably meant something like “do your chores today in case you can’t tomorrow”. We tell people “brevity is the soul of wit”, quoting a comical bore (Polonius) whose endless lectures ignored his own advice. Some even claim, perhaps dubiously, that “blood is thicker than water” truncates an older phrase with the opposite meaning: “the blood of the covenant” – friendship – “is thicker than the water of the womb”.

Then there are the real howlers, things that were never said, or never in that form, which teem on websites with names such as Realbeautifulquotes.com. Ralph Waldo Emerson called “foolish consistency” a hobgoblin, not consistency itself. Gandhi never told us to “be the change you wish to see in the world”. And reports that Mark Twain said “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” are themselves greatly exaggerated. As Albert Einstein so eloquently put it, “never trust a website without citations”.

But instead of (OK, as well as) high-horsedly tutting at these errors, we should recognise the truth they teach us. Words, once written, are kept alive by the people who read them, and their meaning is always subject to those people’s whims. Look at the vicious politics around the US Bill of Rights: did the founding fathers intend that individual Americans have the right to keep and bear assault rifles with laser sights, beverage holders and high-capacity magazines? Or did they only intend that they do so as part of a “well-regulated militia”? We cannot know.

“Go, little book,” wrote Chaucer (no, really, he did), as he launched Troilus and Criseyde into the world. “Pray I to God… that thou be understood”. That is a nod to the hazards of manuscript production, but also a gesture of humility: acceptance that no book entirely survives contact with its readers, that all utterances are out of their speakers’ control the moment they are spoken.

Of course that means that if you want to misinterpret this article, or quote it out of context, I can’t stop you. I can only implore, as the Book of Psalms has it: “Take good care of my baby…”