|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The trivia buff
2004.05.25 — Culture | Language | Trivia | by Roland Grant
This is the first in a series of articles in which I'll indulge my favorite pastime: debunking stupid Internet trivia. I don't know why people enjoy sending unsubstantiated lists of trivia without checking any of the facts. There's an awful lot of this stuff out there, tho, and I enjoy learning and documenting the truth. It's often more interesting than the made-up crap.
The word golf
Many years ago, in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"....and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
FALSE. Its origin is from Dutch kolf meaning club. Practically no acronyms are older than WW1 (notably: OK and USA). [citation]
TV couples in bed
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
FALSE. First was Mary Kay and Johnny, 1947, on the long-forgotten Dumont network. I'm no Flintstones expert, but I don't recall Fred and Wilma ever depicted in bed together. [citation]
Monopoly vs US Treasury
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
FALSE. Parker Brothers prints about 50 billion dollars a year; the US Treasury prints about 175 billion dollars a year. Paper money (of the real sort) only lasts about 18 months in circulation, so a large part of the American economy has to be renewed every year. [Monopoly citation | Treasury citation]
Men vs women
Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
MAYBE. I find scanty evidence of anything on the subject. Women tend to be more sensitive to noise and therefore suffer from tinnitis more, but that isn't the same as hearing better. [citation 1 | citation 2]
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola was originally green.
FALSE. This is only the tip if the iceberg for Coca-Cola lore, and way off base. The formula for Coca-Cola has not changed significantly since it was introduced (well, corn syrup instead of real sugar might be significant). It has always contained caramel. Caramel makes things brown.
Licking your elbow
It is impossible to lick your elbow.
FALSE. Anyone can lick my elbow except me. And I can almost lick my elbow, even with my normal-size tongue. It is impossible to kiss your own elbow, tho.
Walking to work
The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
MAYBE. I could only find national numbers on this, not broken down by state. It's hard to believe it's not New York, tho, unless walking to and from the subway doesn't count. [citation]
Wilderness
The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get
this...)
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
MAYBE. I suppose if you count pasture land as not being wilderness, this could conceivably be true, but even then I doubt it. It's hard to get comparable numbers, anyway. At any rate, most North American wilderness is in the frozen north of Canada, not the heartland of the US, as American readers will assume. [citation]
Cost of dog ownership
The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
TRUE, MORE OR LESS. I feed my medium-size dog dry dog food (not table scraps) and send him to a groomer once a month for $12. Including the intial purchase price of $75 and the invisible fence costing about $200 installed, that's about almost $5,000 for 11 years. Throw in the occasional vet visits to the tune of maybe $400 and the $1,000 or so we've bought in freakin' dog toys... yeah, $6,400 sounds right. Your mileage may vary.
Air passengers
The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
FALSE. Not at 3 AM there isn't. But on average, the 700 million annual passengers carried by the airlines divides out to about 80,000 people in the air continuously. If we figure only normal flying hours of 6 am to 1 am, that's about 101,000 people at any given time (during regular flying hours). [citation]
Intelligence
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
FALSE. Several sites call this a silly myth used to malign natural blonds, but at least one site has the specifics about the study where the claim originated. However, the study says that intelligent people have more copper and LESS zinc in their hair. This is not necessarily a causal relationship, of course; it could just be a statistical anomaly. [citation]
Youngest parents
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
FALSE. Youngest mother ever was 5 years old in Peru. Youngest father was 12 in Scotland. [citation]
Youngest pope
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
FALSE. The pope usually said to just 11 or 12 is Benedict IX, but he was 20 years old when elected. The youngest was John XII, who was 18 when elected... and a very bad pope by all accounts. [citation]
First typewritten novel
The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
FALSE, MORE OR LESS. Twain submitted Life on the Mississippi in typewritten form to his publisher, the first ever to do so (but he wrote it in longhand, as he did his whole career). His autobiography made the Tom Sawyer claim, but scholarly research has proven his memory was faulty. [citation]
Moving monuments
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
FALSE, MORE OR LESS. The cable car line (not the cars themselves) was declared a "national history landmark" in 1964, which is not the same thing as a "monument" (a monument memorializes a person, organization, or event). Plus, other national landmarks and monuments have moving cars, like the Giant Dipper, a wooden roller coaster. [citation 1 | citation 2]
f e e d b a c k
Respond to this page by your e-mail client. Please be sure to mention the title of the article.
