Strange but true
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Strange but true (or Strange, but true) is a tabloid newspaper column (such as the Weekly World News) that features unusual ("strange") stories. The circa 1937 True magazine had a "Strange But True" section on the back cover.
Perhaps the earliest use of "strange but true" in a published work is in Shakespeare's Macbeth (~1599), act III, scene IV (Ross and Old Man outside of Macbeth's castle):
- Ross: "And—strange but true!—Duncan's horses, beautiful and swift, the best of their kind, broke down their stalls and ran wild They refused to obey, as if they were at war with mankind."
- 'Tis strange — but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction —Don Juan by Lord Byron (Canto 14), 1819
The 1859 Notes and Queries by Martim de Albuquerque in a reprinted 1704 account by Edward F. Rimbault ("printed for R. Smith near Spittle-Fields Market") titled A most Strange but True Account of a very Large Sea-Monster.[1]
- It is strange, but true as strange, that imitation generally interests us more than reality. —Richard Grant White, Life and Genius of Shakespeare, 1865
The title may also refer to:
[edit] Literature
Note: this is only a small sampling of many works with this phrase in their title.
- Strange but True, an 1856 poem by Hugh Miller[2]
- "Strange, But True", a pre-1909 short story by Anthony Hope
- A series of books began in the 1960s by Ace Books
- Strange But True: Stories of Many Things, a 1970 book by Phyllis Fenner and Mary McCrea, ISBN 0381998320
- Strange But True: Twenty-Two Amazing Stories, a 1974 book by Donald J. Sobol, ISBN 0590035282
- Strange But True: A Collection of True Stories from the Files of Fate Magazine, a 1997 book about the magazine's paranormal encounter stories since the late 1940s, edited by Corrine Kenner and Craig Miller, ISBN 1567182984
- Strange But True: Mysterious and Bizarre People, a 1999 book by Thomas Slemen, ISBN 0760712441
- Strange But True, a 2000 book by Alison Baxter, ISBN 0194232018
- Strange but true, a 2005 novel by John Searles, ISBN 0688175716
[edit] Music
- Strange But True, 1998 indie rock album by Jad Fair & Yo La Tengo where every song is based upon a story from the "Strange but true" sections of newspapers
- "Strange But True", a ~1988 song on the album X2 by Times Two
[edit] Television
- Strange But True?, 1993-1997 documentary television series
- "Strange but True", the 2004 pilot episode of the Weird U.S. reality television series
[edit] References
- ^ Google Books, Notes and Queries, Martim de Albuquerque, Oxford University Press, 1859, p. 42
- ^ A Dictionary of English Authors, Biographical and Bibliographical, Robert Farquharson Sharp, 1904, p. 198 (Google Books)
[edit] See also
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