The Volokh Conspiracy

I'm pretty sure the orignol source is Louis Carroll, "The Hunting Of The Snark" --"Whatever I tell you three times is true."

I've heard it, but I don't know where it came from.

Along those lines, let me tell a story. There is an old story that when Kennedy was inaugurated, afterwards, he rode in the car on the traditional route along Pennsylvania Ave towards the White House. By his side was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The story goes that as he rode down the Avenue, Kennedy was dismayed to see boarded up stores and a general slummy appearance. He turned to Moynihan and said, "Can't something be done about this?"

So Moynihan took this as a Presidential command, and created the Pennsylvania Ave Development Corp., and over the next few decades, slowly rebuilt and redeveloped the street to it's impressive glory today.

So whenever I have out of town guests, I tell them that story. But ....

Something about it rang untrue. It just seems a little too pat. But in the absence of any contrary evidence, I stuck with the story.

Several years later, I was at an opening night reception at the National Building Museum. They were showing the windows from the Darwin Martin House from Buffalo that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Moynihan, rather old and retired at the time, gave a fine speech about how we must preserve our cities, and he told the exact same story I mentioned above.

I was delighted! Here was confirmation of this story direct from the source. Can't get better than that, right?

Well, after the reception was winding down, I headed for the door, and just then Moynihan was too. I said to him, Thank you Senator, for telling that story about Pennsylvania Ave., I was never sure if it was true, but I'm now I can tell my friends that I heard it straight from the horse's mouth."

He laughed, patted me on the shoulder, and repeated, "Ha, ha, yes, straight from the horse's mouth." (He had a few by this time). Then he looked right at me, and said, do you want to know what REALLY happened?

I said YES! So he started to tell me that Abe Fortas was on the Supreme Court, and they needed place for the US Department of Labor, and they got together and decided to form the PADC and....Well, just then, an aid stepped in and said they have to go.

So I never heard the entire real story. What I do know is that the Kennedy story is likely a fabrication, but it was a good yarn, and it makes both Kennedy and Moynihan look good.

But the real REAL story here is that in Washington, there are always two stories: The truthful one, and the one that people want you to hear.

They are, for obvious reasons, often completely different.

Yes, I know all about Lewis Carroll. I'm looking for the source of the popular wisdom about the spread of factoids thruogh repetition by Washington talking heads.

I probably told you that once.

Also, Felix Cohen used the expression to refer to the Supreme Court's formalist analysis in his "Transcendental Nonsense."

I recall hearing an expression something along the lines of "Once you say something three times in Washington, it's true." Has anyone ever heard that, and do you know where it (or something like it) comes from?

I don't know, but that is the third time I've heard it...

As a secondary point of reference, John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar also makes use of the "I tell you three times" idea when discussing how to provide new information to a super-advanced AI. But no clue with regard to Washington, since there is usually very little sign of regular intelligence there.

my engineer father, may he rest in peace, used to say that the way to prove anything in the social sciences was to say it three times.

Maybe a bit far afield, but according to Shakespeare, Caesar was thrice offered a crown and put it by thrice, signifying that he did not wish to be king. But, of course, he did.

Once is an accident,
Twice is a coincidence,
Three times makes it true. (Heinlein - The Number of the Beast)

I believe that is:

Once is coincidence.
Twice is happenstance.
Three times is enemy action.

In the Scriptures, repeating something twice is an emphatical. When it is repeated thrice as in "Holy, holy, holy" it elevates it to a greater emphasis of agreement.

I would put the origins in Hebrew culture.

Didn't this appear at the end of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

And if so, might it not also appear in the Odyssey?

Heinlein used the phrase, or variants, several times.

"The Menace from Earth" (1957) "But I tell you three times, you owe me nothing."

_Time Enough for Love_ (1973) [sentient computer speaking:] "All my permanents, programs and memories and logics, are twinned in Dora's number-four hold, and I run routine checks and exercise by running the twinned parts parallel with the me here under the Palace -- a 'Tell me six times' instead of my normal 'Tell me three times' method." Later on in the book, [sentient computer speaking] "But I've got it all on tell-me-three-times."

_The Cat Who Walks through Walls_ (1985) [two lovers talking] " "Richard, you are your most infuriating when you are being your most reasonable."
"Do you want me to quiz you?"
"It would be polite."
"Tell me three times."
"I tell you three times and what I tell you three times is true." "

_The Rolling Stones_ (1952) "The new computer was of the standard "I-tell-you-three-times" variety, a triple brain each third of which was capable of solving the whole problem; if one triplet failed, the other two would outvote it and cut it off from action, permitting thereby at least one perfect landing and a chance to correct the failure."