Episode 2611
Well he would, wouldn't he?
Fri, 2024-Jun-28 00:30 UTC
Length - 2:27
Direct Link
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The featured article for Friday, 28 June 2024 is Well he would, wouldn't he?.
"Well he would, wouldn't he?", commonly referred to as Mandy Rice-Davies Applies (shortened to MRDA), is a British political phrase and aphorism that is commonly used as a retort to a self-interested denial.
The Welsh model Mandy Rice-Davies used the phrase while giving evidence during the 1963 trial of the English osteopath Stephen Ward. Ward is considered to have been made a scapegoat for the Profumo affair, a scandal involving John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War. Profumo had an extramarital affair with Rice-Davies's friend, the model Christine Keeler, lied about that affair to Parliament, and then publicly admitted that he had misled the House. Ward was tried for living on the earnings of prostitution; the prosecution alleged that Rice-Davies and Keeler were paid for sex by members of the British elite, and that they then paid Ward from their earnings. During the trial, Ward's lawyer James Burge asked Rice-Davies whether she was aware that Lord Astor had denied having an affair with her; Rice-Davies replied "Well he would, wouldn't he?"
Since its widespread adoption following the Ward trial, political commentators, communications experts, and psychologists have interpreted "Well he would, wouldn't he?" as a political phrase that is used to indicate that the speaker believes that another person is making a self-interested denial. They have also stated that the phrase functions as a commonsense retort to the lies of elite political figures. Linguistically, the phrase has been noted for its use of the modal verb "would" to create rhetorical effect. The phrase has been included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations since 1979.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Friday, 28 June 2024.
For the full current version of the article, see Well he would, wouldn't he? on Wikipedia.
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