h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just found this in a memoir of humorous anecdotes about Abraham Lincoln. It's got an interesting etymological titbit in it.

Here goes, from 'Lincoln's Yarns and Stories' by Alexander K McClure:

Government Printer Defrees, when one of the President's messages was being printed, was a good deal disturbed by the use of the term "sugar-coated," and finally went to Mr. Lincoln about it.
Their relations to each other being of the most intimate character [I'm pretty sure this just means they were friends], he told the President frankly that he ought to remember that a message to Congress was a different affair from a speech at a mass meeting in Illinois; that the messages became a part of history, and should be written accordingly.
"What is the matter now?" inquired the President.
"Why," said Defrees, "you have used an undignified expression in the message"; and, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, "I would alter the structure of that, if I were you."
"Defrees," replied the President, "that word expresses exactly my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when people won't know exactly what 'sugar-coated' means."

A. Lincoln, language prophet...boy, did he know his politicians...

Oh, and here's a titbit from another source that I cannot keep to myself. You'll see why.

In his 1859 autobiographical sketch - a short one for a newspaper - Lincoln explained the intellectual environment of the frontier where he grew up, like this:

'If a straggler supposed to understand latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizzard.'

I note that Mr Lincoln and Rincewind spell 'wizzard' the same way...

Want the whole sketch? Okay, here:

http://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/1859autobio.htm