True Word, Spoken in Jest
This isn’t counting variations with “many a truth”, “many an honest word”, etc. Also counting them as little as possible when they crop up as parts of sentences: I’m looking here for the proverb.
| Phrase | # Hits |
| Many a true word is spoken in jest | 602 |
| Many a true word spoken in jest | 475 |
| There’s many a true word spoken in jest | 102 |
| There is many a true word spoken in jest | 42 |
| Many a true word has been spoken in jest | 19 |
| Many a true word are spoken in jest | 4 |
| There are many true words spoken in jest | 4 |
| Many true words are spoken in jest | 3 |
| Many a true word are spoken in jest | 3 |
| Many a true words spoken in jest | 2 |
| Many a true word’s spoken in jest | 1 |
| Many a true words are spoken in jest | 1 |
| There’s many a true words spoken in jest | 1 |
| Many true words spoken in jest | 1 |
| Many a true word hath been spoken in jest | 1 |
| Many true words have been spoken in jest | 1 |
“There’s many a true word spoken in jest” is at H.M.S. Surprise, p.89.
The funny thing about this sort of post is that it may itself be indexed by some search engines, making any subsequent attempts to do the same thing far more difficult. It can snowball, too. Ah well, nobody ever called this science!