The Rest of the Proverb

You've seen it a hundred times: "the real, full, original version is actually…" — and the twist that follows reverses the meaning you grew up with. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes the tail is real but was bolted on in living memory. And sometimes it was simply invented. Here are seven. Sort each one before you see the receipts.

Sort-the-claim instrument

Proverb 1 of 7Score 0 / 0

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The "real full version", as the internet tells it:

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Is that "full version"…

The check — show your working

The verdict on each card is not an opinion; it is a function of the dated attestation record, computed the same way every time:

If the claimed "full version" has no attestation anywhere in the record → fabricated.
If it is attested and is older than the familiar short form (so the short form is the reduction) → genuine.
If it is attested but younger — a later add-on to an already-old proverb → accretion (real, but not the lost original).

Every earliest-attestation date you saw — Jonson 1598, Mynshul 1618, the KJV 1611, the 1912 newspaper, the silence where proponents cite no source — carries its citation in research/the-rest-of-the-proverb/sources.md, and the three-way rule is run over all seven by research/the-rest-of-the-proverb/verify.mjs (7 / 7 consistent). The scholarship is the dates; the dates carry their sources; the verdict just follows.