Word for Word -- Again

Chip Ballard, local-color columnist, routinely writes stories without attribution. He did it again this morning. His front-porch ramble, which boils down to how nice that we have cars so we can drive to the dentist instead of waiting for a circuit rider, launches with a brief history of the automobile. Ballard's words, phrasing, sentence structure and order of ideas throughout the section appear to come directly from a third-rate (also unattributed and unsourced) Internet site called Idea Finder. Here's the side-by-side comparison.

Idea Finder: The earliest ancestor of the modern automobile is probably the Fardier, a three-wheeled, steam-powered, 2.3-mph vehicle built in 1771 by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot for the French minister of war. This cumbersome machine was never put into production because it was much slower and harder to operate than a horse-drawn vehicle.

Chip Ballard: The earliest ancestor of the modern automobile was the Fardier, a three-wheeled, steam-powered, 2.3-mph vehicle built in 1771 by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot for the French minister of war. This machine was never put into production because it was so cumbersome and it was slower and harder to operate than a horse and buggy.

Idea Finder: The milestone vehicle was built in Germany in 1889 by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Powered by a 1.5 hp, two-cylinder gasoline engine, it had a four-speed transmission and traveled at 10 mph.

Chip Ballard: The first internal combustion engine was built by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1886. It had a 1.5 hp, two-cylinder gasoline engine, a four-speed transmission and traveled at 10 mph.

Idea Finder: The first automobile to be produced in quantity was the 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, which was built in the United States by Ransom E. Olds. Modern automobile mass production, and its use of the modern industrial assembly line, is credited to Henry Ford of Detroit, Michigan, who had built his first gasoline-powered car in 1896. Ford began producing his Model T in 1908, and by 1927, when it was discontinued, over 18 million had rolled off the assembly line.

Chip Ballard: The first automobile to be produced in quantity was the 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, which was built in the United States by Ransom E. Olds. But Modern automobile mass production and the use of the modern industrial assembly line, are credited to Henry Ford of Detroit, Mich., who had built his first gasoline-powered car in 1896. Ford began mass production of his Model T in 1908; by 1927, when it was discontinued, over 18 million had been sold.

Chip's paragraph about the first speeder may have come from a San Diego Porsche club forum where it was posted by Ted Myrus, Autocrosser, back on Jan. 22, 2005: “The nation’s first speeder was arrested in 1899 by a New York policeman riding a bicycle. The speeder was whizzing along at an amazing 12 mph." Myrus gives a source , "SAE Update, 2/05."

Ballard seems to misread the post and reports the speeder was on a bike, instead of the cop. But he likes the phrase “at an amazing 12 mph” well enough to copy that part accurately.

Did Ballard plagiarize his prose from Idea Finders and a Porsche forum? We'll never know because Ballard doesn't attribute. He would have us all believe he just woke up this morning knowing all this stuff. Such a smart man.