For years, social media users have shared a quote purportedly attributed to George Carlin, the American comedian who died in 2008. The passage read: “Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”

For example, a May 2020 Reddit post featuring the quote in a meme had garnered more than 3,100 upvotes as of this writing. A similar post from 2022 received 1,900 upvotes.

The quote also appeared in numerous posts on other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and X, and it was attributed to Carlin on Goodreads.

The quotation could be traced back to Carlin. However, it paraphrased a statement Carlin made in a comedy special, rather than directly quoting him.

The earliest appearance of the verbatim quotation appeared to come from an X postby the account @TheGeorgeCarlin on April 2, 2013, five years after his death. According to the account’s bio: …