Simple factual errors that drive you nuts

[Sampiro]

I'll share some so you can get the point and join in:


TERMS FOR 'other than full' SIBLINGS

If one of your parents, either one, has a child with a person who isn't your parent, that child (if a boy) is your half brother. If either of your parents marries another person after you are born and that other person has children by a previous partner, those children are your step siblings. This is not hard, but you would be amazed how interchangeably and inaccurately the terms are used. (Examples: I was reading an article today about Mary Todd Lincoln's stepsiblings who were killed in the Civil War- they were in fact her half-siblings. A magazine article recently referred to Barack Obama's stepsister in Hawaii- again, that's a half sister. The Brady boys and the Brady girls were step siblings.
I read an interview with Gore Vidal in which the interviewer referred to Vidal as Jackie Kennedy Onassis's stepbrother, which in fact he was not (though his half-brother was; Jackie's mother married Gore's former stepfather after Gore was no longer related to him.)

---------------------------------

A historical error I've read many times: "Until Columbus, people thought the earth was flat." It's said many times as if it's a well known fact, which perhaps it is, but at least on the Dope I don't have to belabor the fact that it's a completely false fact.

--------------------------------

Barack Obama's father was not an African-American. He was an African. The terms African-American and black are not interchangeable, and yet you'd be surprised how often this pops up.

What are some that always make you want to say "W-R-O-N-G!!!!!!!"?

[Ponch8]

Humans only use 10% of their brain power. (Well, maybe the people who believe that crap do...)

[Really Not All That Bright]

Seeing Lewis Hamilton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hamilton) referred to as an "African American" by American journalist always makes me cringe.

My fiancee used to use the word touche to mean something like "look who's talking!" I've heard lots of other people use it in the wrong context too- or misspell it, which is worse.

[alphaboi867]

....Barack Obama's father was not an African-American. He was an African. The terms African-American and black are not interchangeable, and yet you'd be surprised how often this pops up...

When Star Trek: Voyager premiered alot of articles mentioned the fact that Tuvok was the first African-American Vulcan. He's not even human. That's worse than hearing people refer to Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first African-American president.

[tdn]

I remember years ago someone insisting that a certain friend of mine was Chinese-American. No, actually, she's Vietnamese-Australian, but thanks for playing.

And speaking of being strapped for cash -- can you borrow me some money? I'd really love to loan a ten from you.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

My fiancee used to use the word touche to mean something like "look who's talking!" I've heard lots of other people use it in the wrong context too- or misspell it, which is worse.

It's spelled "Touché"

[Really Not All That Bright]

It's spelled "Touché"
I knew somebody would say that :smack:. I don't know what the "Alt +" thing for an e with an acute accent is.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

I knew somebody would say that :smack:. I don't know what the "Alt +" thing for an e with an acute accent is.
Alt 0201 (http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00c9/index.htm). And if you already know the unicode number, see this (http://www.fileformat.info/tip/microsoft/enter_unicode.htm)

[Really Not All That Bright]

Thanks!

[Snarky_Kong]

I knew somebody would say that :smack:. I don't know what the "Alt +" thing for an e with an acute accent is.

alt+0233

[Baldwin]

In references to celestial objects, I frequently hear a figure that's impossibly close or impossibly far away. Examples:

1) Several Twilight Zone episodes featured an Earthlike planet (or "asteroid") that was supposedly something like "ten million miles from Earth".

2) I've got the National Geographic Channel on. Interesting docudrama about the Space Race. There's a promo for another show, with the narrator saying: "When you wish upon a star, even at the speed of light, it would take your wish five million years to get there!" WTF? Where the Hell did they get that figure?

[Borborygmi]

Barack Obama's father was not an African-American. He was an African. The terms African-American and black are not interchangeable, and yet you'd be surprised how often this pops up.Sorry not to offer one of my own, but another example of this one that I still get a kick out of...

I once saw a man being interviewed on local news who was furious -- furious -- that African-Americans are never given proper credit for building the great pyramids at Giza.

[Ludovic]

That a captain's wheel cannot, in fact, move one's testicles.

[Dervorin]

In references to celestial objects, I frequently hear a figure that's impossibly close or impossibly far away. Examples:

1) Several Twilight Zone episodes featured an Earthlike planet (or "asteroid") that was supposedly something like "ten million miles from Earth".

2) I've got the National Geographic Channel on. Interesting docudrama about the Space Race. There's a promo for another show, with the narrator saying: "When you wish upon a star, even at the speed of light, it would take your wish five million years to get there!" WTF? Where the Hell did they get that figure?

That second one would be entirely accurate if you wished on a star 5 million LY away. What's wrong with that? There's certainly plenty of choice.

If you want a faster turnaround time, you just need to aim your wishes in the direction of Proxima Centauri and you should have a reply in 8 years, give or take a bit. It's all about correct star selection.

[Really Not All That Bright]

That second one would be entirely accurate if you wished on a star 5 million LY away. What's wrong with that? There's certainly plenty of choice.
The farthest stars visible to the naked eye are about 4,000 light years away. You can see the galaxy Andromeda with the naked eye, and it's 2.5 million light years away, but it's a) not a star, and b) not 5 million light years away.

I suppose you could theoretically wish upon a star while looking through a telescope, but I imagine it kinda ruins the moment.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Not out and out a factual error, but an implication of a factual error:

“William Henry Harrison contracted a cold after giving a two-hour (or whatever) inaugural address on a cold, rainy day with no hat or coat. . .”

While that all of that is factually correct, it implies that the cold conditions caused his cold (or whatever it was that later turned into pneumonia).

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

2)"When you wish upon a star, even at the speed of light, it would take your wish five million years to get there!" WTF? Where the Hell did they get that figure?

While your point is factually correct, it’s possible that either the script writer or narrator goofed, or possibly you misheard it. I haven’t seen that doc, and I meant to record it but my DVR was full.

Reason I say this is: If you substitute “speed of sound” for “speed of light,” you do get a reasonably close 5M years to get to Alpha Centauri at 4.3LY away.

Another TZ factual error from "From Agnes With Love:"

Wally Cox asks this question to the computer (whose name is Agnes):

"What is the first prime number larger than the 17th root of 12 trillion, (some number) million, (some other number) thousand, and (the rest)?"

(I apologize for the gaps, but I don't remember the exact number.)

The computer responds "5."

Not true.

If the number was supposed to be 12 BILLION, etc., then 5 is correct. As stated by Cox, the correct number would be 7. (17th root of 12 B is @3.9; 17th root of 12T is @5.9)

[tdn]

The computer responds "5."

Not true.

If we're going to nitpick, then let's go the Wizard of Oz. "The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an iscoceles triangle, is equal to the square root of the remaining side."

Straw-for-brains moron.

[Silver Tyger]

That the Chinese word for crisis is made up of danger and opportunity.

[you with the face]

That the US Public Health Service actually gave black men in Tuskegee, AL syphilis, when the actual crime was that they withheld treatment and allowed folks to needlessly suffer all in the interest of data collection.

That said, it can be reasonably argued that by withholding treatment, the govt allowed people to get infected that would not have been otherwise. So I'm fine with saying that they indirectly gave syphillis to people.

[tdn]

Bumblebees can't fly, or so say "scientists." But bumblebees fly anyway, because they have to, and their positive spirits give them lift, and they never let some dumb old scientist tell them otherwise.

Therefore, science is stupid.

[BobLibDem]

Everyone seems convinced that toilets drain in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere.

About half the "facts" that people send around in those glurge emails.

[imfloating]

People use the term Quantum Leap to describe a tremendous move forward.
Some out there actually think suposably and nucular are words.

[skylyn12]

That the No Child Left Behind law cuts funding from schools as a penalty (or from schools that fail). Completely 100% untrue. Yet, I hear this all the time, including several times on this board...

[Really Not All That Bright]

"Per say"

[Troy McClure SF]

"iPods can only play music you buy from the Apple Store."

It was amazing how many people would say this, and how long it persisted. Never mind that the Store came well after the iPod, and that this would be an insanely stupid idea, even for Apple.

[42fish]

If we're going to nitpick, then let's go the Wizard of Oz. "The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an iscoceles triangle, is equal to the square root of the remaining side."

Straw-for-brains moron.

I've always thought the math is deliberately f'ed up to demonstrate that the Scarecrow indeed is not any smarter just because the Wizard handed him a diploma.

[tdn]

I've always thought the math is deliberately f'ed up to demonstrate that the Scarecrow indeed is not any smarter just because the Wizard handed him a diploma.

Perhaps, but IMHO you're reading a little more into it than is warranted. My guess is that one of the scriptwriters told another one to "Now have him say something that sounds really smart. Hey, that's pretty good. But change 'right triangle' to 'iscoceles', because that sounds really brainy."

There are a lot of lines in that movie that sound great as long as you don't think about them too much. The bit about how the size of your heart is not measured by how much you love, but how much you are loved by others, pretty much says that the purpose of life is to be really popular.

[puddleglum]

That the US Public Health Service actually gave black men in Tuskegee, AL syphilis, when the actual crime was that they withheld treatment and allowed folks to needlessly suffer all in the interest of data collection.

That said, it can be reasonably argued that by withholding treatment, the govt allowed people to get infected that would not have been otherwise. So I'm fine with saying that they indirectly gave syphillis to people.

This is not true, the people studied had advanced past the point of the treatments available at the time. The cure for syphillis was not found until well into the study. The previous treatment was ineffective and hard on the patient. The study was designed to see if not treating the disease gave better or worse outcomes than the poor treatments available at the time of the studies inception.

[Sampiro]

Bumblebees can't fly, or so say "scientists." But bumblebees fly anyway, because they have to, and their positive spirits give them lift, and they never let some dumb old scientist tell them otherwise.

Therefore, science is stupid.

I've heard the same argument used with hummingbirds as well, usually with some "by the law of physics.... but then the hummingbird never studied law!" punchline.

A historical error about the Civil War that always irks me: "Only about 1 in 10 southerners owned a slave". Okay, technically this is true, but it's misleading. Slaves, like land and mules and other property, usually only had one individual legal owner, but about 1 in 4 southerners grew up in a slaveowning household (that's an overall estimate; in Mississippi it was about 1:2), so reliance on slaves was far more widespread than the 1:10 makes it seem.

[ftg]

People use the term Quantum Leap to describe a tremendous move forward.

Ding-ding-ding! I knew someone was going to post this.

Tell you what, look up "quantum" in a dictionary. In mine, the Physics use is the fourth definition. I've said it a million times, when Julius Caesar used "quantum", he wasn't talking subatomic particles.

(So I guess my complaint are those people who think "quantum" only refers to tiny quantities.)

[ExTank]

Variations on a theme:

"There are no gun control laws in the U.S." Some people seem to assume that because someone thinks we need more (restrictive) gun control laws, that the default position is that we have no gun control laws.

"Fully automatic weapons are unregulated." More often than not, some newsie has misidentified a semi-auto only variant of a military-grade fully-automatic firearm like the AK-47, which has the same alphanumeric identifier for both models.

"The Gun Show Loophole." That any firearm sold at a gun show is exempt from the federally-mandated background check requirement for licensed firearms dealers.

More broadly: scriptwriters who seem to think that the terms "universe" and "galaxy" are interchangeable.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Tell you what, look up "quantum" in a dictionary. In mine, the Physics use is the fourth definition.

Even better, look up quantum leap (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quantum+leap), and you'll see it means exactly what the poster says it doesn't.

It's also worth noting that the original term referring to subatomic particles was "quantum jump."

[Freddy the Pig]

Every single time I discuss the unemployment rate, either in real life or on this Board, someone complains that people whose comp benefits expire no longer count as unemployed.

This is completely, provably false, and so dumb that a moment's reflection should dispel it. There are all kinds of people who are unemployed but never eligible for comp. Comp eligibility has fuck-all to do with how they measure unemployment (they use surveys). But try getting people to believe it.

[RickJay]

Every single time I discuss the unemployment rate, either in real life or on this Board, someone complains that people whose comp benefits expire no longer count as unemployed.

This is completely, provably false, and so dumb that a moment's reflection should dispel it. There are all kinds of people who are unemployed but never eligible for comp. Comp eligibility has fuck-all to do with how they measure unemployment (they use surveys). But try getting people to believe it.
This.

It comes up in every discussion on the SDMB we have about recession of unemployment. Every one. It's debunked in every one. It's something you can Google in about seven seconds. And it just won't die.

When I was in the Army my pet peeve was myths about weapons. the most common one was that the Geneva Conventions ban shotguns, or shooting people with .50 cals, or whatever. All false; the Geneva Conventions aren't about weapons.

[Liddle Lamsy Divey]

The idea that Anne Frank and her family (...and the van Pels and Dr. Pfeiffer) had only an attic to hide in, when in fact, they had five rooms (one being a bathroom), plus the attic.

[Skald the Rhymer]

If we're going to nitpick, then let's go the Wizard of Oz. "The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an iscoceles triangle, is equal to the square root of the remaining side."

Straw-for-brains moron.

I think the misstatement of the Pythagorean theorem in WoO is a meta-joke.

[Jayn_Newell]

The one that really gave me a headache was a letter in the local paper, back when I was in Canada, complaining about how the French name for the province was 'Nouvelle Ecosse'. "It's Nova Scotia, not New Scotland." Except, Nova Scotia is LATIN for New Scotland. Dipstick.

[Captain Carrot]

When I was in the Army my pet peeve was myths about weapons. the most common one was that the Geneva Conventions ban shotguns, or shooting people with .50 cals, or whatever. All false; the Geneva Conventions aren't about weapons.

Does white phosphorus not count as a weapon, or am I thinking of some other international agreement?

[Wakinyan]

Sorry for being an asshole, and I mean no disrespect, but

That USA saved Europe twice during the 20th century.

Last I heard it was just the other day, by a politician during a debate in Swedish Parliament...! I get the urge to point out that there was a thing going on called the Red Army, the momentum of which was unstoppable well before 1944 (D-day). WWII in Europe was decided on the Eastern front, goddamit.

Thank you-thank you-thank you, for helping out with the fascism and everything, especially by placing large armies in Germany to stop Communism from devour more of Europe than it did.

But, as painfully as it is, USA did not "save Europe" from Hitler (though helping out a lot, for which everyone is eternally greatful) -- the Soviet Union did. And USA did not arrive as the cavalry in WWI and killed off the Kaiser; Germany was exhausted economically, politically and strategically by that time. (Though were are ever greatful for the help; also goes to Canada and Australia et al).

Just don't say that, it is historically incorrect.

[It's Not Rocket Surgery!]

Guinea pigs are NOT hamsters! Several times, I've shown people pictures of my guinea pigs, and heard "What cute hamsters!". I picked one up at the pet store and a lady came over and did the same thing. Aaaaaargh!

On a related note, the person who named it the "Hampster Dance" instead of "Hamster Dance" should be eaten alive by hamsters.

[Mangetout]

"Per say"

Walla!

[Ronald C. Semone]

"Giving little children sugar, especially at night, makes them hyperactive." Countless studies have shown that this is not true; it has no affect on them.

[SylverOne]

Walla!

This.

And the brainiacs who think they know it all, but spell it viola!

[flex727]

Walla!
I used to work with a lady named Hua La. [Okay, please resume]

[flex727]

Using "her" or "him" as a subject: "Her and I went to the beach today."

Or worse: "Him and me went too."

[Morbo]

For all intensive purposes, Small Pox utterly decimated the Mayan peoples.

[SurrenderDorothy]

Apes=/=monkeys.

The difference is bigger than just tail vs no tail. Apes and monkeys are very different. Apes are more closely related to humans than they are to monkeys.

[imfloating]

Ding-ding-ding! I knew someone was going to post this.

Tell you what, look up "quantum" in a dictionary. In mine, the Physics use is the fourth definition. I've said it a million times, when Julius Caesar used "quantum", he wasn't talking subatomic particles.

(So I guess my complaint are those people who think "quantum" only refers to tiny quantities.)

No. just people that wrongly use the term quantum leap.

[RickJay]

Does white phosphorus not count as a weapon, or am I thinking of some other international agreement?
I don't believe WP is specifically prohibited by ANY treaty. It's been used extensively by the United States as a weapon in Iraq.

Discussion of whether WP weapons should be banned is generally related to whether or not it constitutes a chemical weapon; in addition to being ferociously combustible, WP is hideously poisonous. A person unfortunate enough to be burned by WP can survive the burns and die of poisoning. Its current status, so far as I am aware, is that it is legal to use in its usual applications - smoke production, for the most part - but not if you're intentionally poisoning people with it.

[Lamia]

Both in real life and on the SDMB people often make some remark about how in historic times you'd be considered elderly at 30 (or some other fairly young age) and would surely be in the grave at 40.

Two problems with this. First, the ages given usually seem to be completely made up. Second, this is a misunderstanding of the average life expectancy. Until relatively recently the average life expectancy was low because of high infant and childhood mortality rates. Once a person survived childhood, it was hardly surprising if they made it to 40+. Heck, over 2,000 years ago Socrates lived to be 70, and would have lived even longer if not for the whole hemlock thing.

[Andy L]

Myself versus me:

Myself is only used when you are the object of the sentence ("I cleaned myself", "I helped myself", etc. ) not when you're embarrassed to say "me" ("Give those things to Debbie and myself")

Three-Fifths of a Person:

The people wanted slaves counted as a "full person" in the census were the slave-owners of the South - because counting slaves as full people in apportioning power in the Congress would give the South a lot more power. Abolitionists in the North wanted slaves not counted at all. The crime was not counting slaves as _only_ 3/5s of a person - the crime was giving slave-owning states extra votes in Congress due to the existence of people who were not allowed any human rights at all.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

For all intensive purposes, Small Pox utterly decimated the Mayan peoples.
Are you complaining about the incorrect use of "decimated", "intensive" or where the Mayas wiped out by something else?

edit: I assume it's the latter.

[Andy L]

Both in real life and on the SDMB people often make some remark about how in historic times you'd be considered elderly at 30 (or some other fairly young age) and would surely be in the grave at 40.

Two problems with this. First, the ages given usually seem to be completely made up. Second, this is a misunderstanding of the average life expectancy. Until relatively recently the average life expectancy was low because of high infant and childhood mortality rates. Once a person survived childhood, it was hardly surprising if they made it to 40+. Heck, over 2,000 years ago Socrates lived to be 70, and would have lived even longer if not for the whole hemlock thing.

Yeah - I've given talks about this: children who got past 5 or 6 would be quite likely to make it to adulthood; women who got past childbearing age, and men who were lucky enough to miss war could make it to 70 or 80.

[Crafter_Man]

Stuff I hear all the time:

"A microwave oven operates at 2.45 GHz. This is because a water molecule resonates at 2.45 GHz." Nope. Wrong.

"Glass is really a liquid, not a solid. They've measured glass in old buildings and found the glass is thicker at the bottom, blaa blaa blaa..." Sorry, but glass is not a liquid.

"When it comes to electrocution, voltage doesn't matter... only the current matters." Not true; both are in-play.

"You're not allowed to openly carry a loaded handgun in Ohio." Wrong, for the most part.

"A shooter feels the same amount of recoil energy as the bullet's kinetic energy. This is due to conservation of energy." Wrong. Try again, but this time use conservation of momentum.

"Remember those big cars Detroit made back in the 1970? Those were full of heavy steel, and hence you were much better protected in an accident. Today’s cars are made from thin, lightweight steel, and therefore you're not as well protected in an accident." Factually wrong.

"Heat rises." This is usually said as if it's universally true. Fact is, heat only rises in a fluid, and only when the density of the fluid is inversely proportional to temperature.


And if you ask a bunch of people what most women die from, many will say "breast cancer." Yet less than 4% of women die from breast cancer.

[enalzi]

"Jesus was Immaculately Conceived." No he wasn't. Mary was. I'm not even Christian, and I know that.

[Alastair Moonsong]

"Glass is really a liquid, not a solid. They've measured glass in old buildings and found the glass is thicker at the bottom, blaa blaa blaa..." Sorry, but glass is not a liquid.


OK, I gotta call you out on this one, if only for clarification. I've heard this many times, including from college professors, and I am fairly certain it's true; I have seen examples of the thickening of the glass at the bases of old cathedral windows and other very old buildings, and so am inclined to go with the "exceedingly viscous fluid" explanation regarding the nature of glass. Please, elaborate... Are you saying that glass does not deform over time? Or that it does deform, but still isn't a liquid? If it's not a liquid, what is it, just a regular solid? Enquiring mind wants to know!

[fachverwirrt]

OK, I gotta call you out on this one, if only for clarification. I've heard this many times, including from college professors, and I am fairly certain it's true; I have seen examples of the thickening of the glass at the bases of old cathedral windows and other very old buildings, and so am inclined to go with the "exceedingly viscous fluid" explanation regarding the nature of glass. Please, elaborate... Are you saying that glass does not deform over time? Or that it does deform, but still isn't a liquid? If it's not a liquid, what is it, just a regular solid? Enquiring mind wants to know!

Wikipedia deals with the question fairly well: glass physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#The_physics_of_glass).

[Rack-a-Bones]

alot



Alot! Yeeargh! Drives me bonkers for no good reason.


This is more of a local thing: Ballard, WA

I know we like the fact we live in a quaint little neighborhood (or used to at least) but Ballard hasn't been a city since 1907.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Walla!
Oh, god, yes, that too.
"Giving little children sugar, especially at night, makes them hyperactive." Countless studies have shown that this is not true; it has no affect on them.
Affect is a verb. The one you're looking for is effect, which is a noun (and a verb).
Myself versus me:

Myself is only used when you are the object of the sentence ("I cleaned myself", "I helped myself", etc. ) not when you're embarrassed to say "me" ("Give those things to Debbie and myself")
Actually, me is used when you are the object of a sentence. Myself is used when you are the subject of a sentence which involves a reflexive verb.
"Jesus was Immaculately Conceived." No he wasn't. Mary was. I'm not even Christian, and I know that.
Er... what? Conceive means to become pregnant. Mary conceived. Jesus was conceived.

[panache45]

1. The French just totally surrendered to the Nazis, and handed their entire country over to Germany . . . until they were rescued by the Americans.

2. Humans are descended from monkeys. And evolution is no longer happening.

3. Every single quality or characteristic of any species exists for some evolutionary "reason." (How many threads have there been, that start out, "What is the evolutionary advantage of . . . ?")

4. If a particular individual didn't invent/discover something, someone else would have. (While that's often the case, it can't be assumed. And if Beethoven hadn't composed his Ninth Symphony, it's fairly certain that nobody else would have either.)

5. If you eat too many sweets, you will become diabetic.

[panache45]

Er... what? Conceive means to become pregnant. Mary conceived. Jesus was conceived.

You missed the point: The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being born without Original Sin; it has nothing to do with the conception of Jesus.

[The Surb]

[QUOTE=Crafter_Man;10850963]Stuff I hear all the time:

"Heat rises." This is usually said as if it's universally true. Fact is, heat only rises in a fluid, and only when the density of the fluid is inversely proportional to temperature.

QUOTE]

Heat doesn't rise, heated matter may rise, but heat doesn't.

[Really Not All That Bright]

You missed the point: The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being born without Original Sin; it has nothing to do with the conception of Jesus.
Huh. I didn't know that.

[bouv]

Are you complaining about the incorrect use of "decimated", "intensive" or where the Mayas wiped out by something else?

edit: I assume it's the latter.

It's three things.

1) People tend to say "for all intensive purposes" when it should be "for all intents and purposes,"
2) As you mentioned, decimated is used wrong (means to reduce by 1/10.)
3) Using "peoples" instead of "people" cause it sounds "cooler" or something.

[Seeker of Truth and Beauty]

"If I keep playing the lottery, I'll win someday."

Sorry, no.

[Chessic Sense]

2) As you mentioned, decimated is used wrong (means to reduce by 1/10.)

Well, sure, if you've in the habit of ignoring first and second definitions (http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/decimate)and jumping to the third. Since when does origin get to determine what a word will mean for the rest of eternity? Move on people.

Your argument has been decimated.

[Pseudocode]

When I was in the Army my pet peeve was myths about weapons. the most common one was that the Geneva Conventions ban shotguns, or shooting people with .50 cals, or whatever. All false; the Geneva Conventions aren't about weapons.

I know the discussion of white phosphorus implied this, but I still wanted to mention it: Your claim is not true; they banned poison gas as a weapon.

Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of Poisonous Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Geneva_Protocol_for_the_Prohibition_of_Poisonous_Gases_and_Bacteriological_Methods_of_Warfare)

[5-HT]

That stupid commercial where the woman says that on vehix.com you can "literally" drive the car on the website.

also, you're too old for that hat, you're not a freshman in college.

[Juniper200]

Alot! I know we like the fact we live in a quaint little neighborhood (or used to at least) but Ballard hasn't been a city since 1907.

Free Ballard!

[Martini Enfield]

The "Guns are banned in the UK and Australia" thing really irritates me. No, no they aren't. "Requiring a valid firearms licence and secure storage facilities to possess" does not equal "Banned".

Another one is that "The flush toilet was invented by Sir Thomas Crapper".
Again, No.
Thomas Crapper was a real-life manufacturer of flush toilets in 19th Century Britain, and he did take out a patent for the ballcock and other flush toilet related things (and had several Royal Warrants, but not a Knighthood), but the flush toilet in the modern sense was arguably invented in Elizabethan England c.1596 by Sir John Harrington, and several other people had produced (and installed) workable designs long before Thomas Crapper got involved.

Also, the sandwich (in the concept of filling twixt two pieces of bread) was not invented by the Earl of Sandwich. Honestly, people, you think it had never, ever occurred to anyone in all of history prior to the 18th century that they could take a piece of bread, put some meat on it, then put another piece of bread on top of it and have a tasty, portable snack? John Montagu (Earl of Sandwich) certainly popularised the idea, but that's only because a travel-writer made mention of it in a book about London and mentioned Montagu eating sandwiches so as not to interrupt his card games (in a "Those Wacky English!" context). Not the same thing as "inventing" it at all.

[Rigamarole]

Barack Obama's father was not an African-American. He was an African. The terms African-American and black are not interchangeable, and yet you'd be surprised how often this pops up.

No, I wouldn't. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term "African-American" has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean "black".

[Rigamarole]

Yeah - I've given talks about this: children who got past 5 or 6 would be quite likely to make it to adulthood; women who got past childbearing age, and men who were lucky enough to miss war could make it to 70 or 80.

And this is why I'd be more interested in seeing statistics that reflect life expectancy at age 5 (or higher) rather than life expectancy at birth. But those data are rarely presented when talking about life expectancies, for some reason.

[Crafter_Man]

[QUOTE=Crafter_Man;10850963]Stuff I hear all the time:

"Heat rises." This is usually said as if it's universally true. Fact is, heat only rises in a fluid, and only when the density of the fluid is inversely proportional to temperature.

QUOTE]

Heat doesn't rise, heated matter may rise, but heat doesn't.
Well, yea, but that was implied.

[flodnak]

1. The French just totally surrendered to the Nazis, and handed their entire country over to Germany . . . until they were rescued by the Americans.Misconceptions about how people reacted to their country being attacked and occupied by the Nazis could fill a book. A big book. Right now, there are some official events scheduled to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Knut Hamsun, unquestionably one of Norway's greatest authors but also unquestionably a guy whose political leanings were... questionable. The controversy about these events I understand. What bothers me is the way some people react as though every other Norwegian at the time, with only a handful of exceptions, was staunchly anti-Nazi at all times, and did everything they could to resist. Reality, of course, is more complicated.

Completely unrelated factual error that drives me nuts: The World Wide Web is not the same thing as the Internet. True, the Web is now by far the largest source of Internet traffic, the part of the Internet that nearly all users spend most of their time on (with many never leaving it), and so forth. It's big, it's highly visible, and it's very important. But that doesn't mean the Internet is the Web or vice-versa.

[Richard Pearse]

No, I wouldn't. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term "African-American" has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean "black".
Really, can you point me to the discussion on this?

[FriarTed]

That the US Public Health Service actually gave black men in Tuskegee, AL syphilis, when the actual crime was that they withheld treatment and allowed folks to needlessly suffer all in the interest of data collection.

That said, it can be reasonably argued that by withholding treatment, the govt allowed people to get infected that would not have been otherwise. So I'm fine with saying that they indirectly gave syphillis to people.


Do you really want to despair? A representative of the Tuskegee Airmen found it necessary to issue this statement.

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.war.world-war-ii/browse_thread/thread/f928ea38c3a70d2a


Btw, from what I read, the men denied treatment were at the stage where the syphillis was no longer transmittable. I don't know how true that is, though.

[The Surb]

[QUOTE=The Surb;10851282]
Well, yea, but that was implied.

Yeah I admit it, I was being a butthead :D

[Martini Enfield]

Really, can you point me to the discussion on this?

Thats what I was thinking. I'm sure the Maori, Pacific Islanders, the Aborigines, and Native Africans who live in Africa And Not America might have something to say on the subject too...

[Harvey The Heavy]

One time, a question on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" referred to the Gulf of California as a "U.S. body of water." Check a map, 'tards, it's shoreline is 100% Mexico. I saw this about a year ago, and for some reason it still drives me crazy that something that stupid made it on air without being caught.

I've heard several people insist that Mexico is in South America. "It's south of America!". Frankly, I'm tired of people referring to the U.S. as America. America is the entire New World.

[panache45]

No, I wouldn't. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term "African-American" has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean "black".

Are you seriously saying that blacks, wherever they live in the world, are to be called "African-Americans"? That's just beyond stupid.

[Skald the Rhymer]

No, I wouldn't. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term "African-American" has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean "black".

That is, without a doubt, the single stupidest statement I have ever read on the Dope. That INCLUDES my jokes about conquering the world with flying, flame-breathing, etc. monkeys. Those jokes only need to be retired, but that statement needs to be taken to the village square, beaten with clubs until it begs for mercy, pissed on by every witness, and then burned alive as an example to other stupid statements, with no gunpowder placed among the faggots.

It is breathtakingly arrogant to claim that African American = black. To do so implies that all other cultures in the world are mere adjuncts to that of the United States; that their history, their current experiences, their interests, their beliefs, their very being is less important than the fact that they exist in a world in which the United States is dominant. In asserting American hegemony thus, it ignores the obvious fact that America is no longer in such a position, if it ever was; it ignores the growing power of China and India and Russia. It prioritizes the largely American issue of politically correct nomenclature over the right of other peoples to decide how they should be addressed. It pretends that there is no difference between persons from the Dominican Republic and Kenya, between persons from Johannesburg and Abuja, between persons from my neighborhood and Australian aborigines.

I live in Memphis, Tennessee, and my ancestors were brought over on the Middle Passage. But I don't consider myself "African-American." Too many damn syllables for one thing, and for another I have no political or emotional attachments to Africa. (That I don't is the result of an atrocity, but it's the way it is.)

The fact that there are many persons are too lazy and stupid to think before they speak and thus wish to call any person with dark skin "African American" does not make their usage any less idiotic or offensive.

[jjimm]

Are you seriously saying that blacks, wherever they live in the world, are to be called "African-Americans"? That's just beyond stupid.Totally agree. Are you smoking crack, Rigamarole?

It may mean generic "black" to certain ignoramuses in the US, but that usage should stop there, and should not be encouraged, on grounds of "duh!".

I promise you my British afro-Caribbean heritage sister, living in Tennessee, has smoke metaphorically pouring out of her ears when someone calls her "African American".

[BlinkingDuck]

Ding-ding-ding! I knew someone was going to post this.

Tell you what, look up "quantum" in a dictionary. In mine, the Physics use is the fourth definition. I've said it a million times, when Julius Caesar used "quantum", he wasn't talking subatomic particles.

(So I guess my complaint are those people who think "quantum" only refers to tiny quantities.)

I've always taken Quantum leap as progress that 'jumped' forward without going through intermediate steps...a true revolution rather than incremental development.

I don't think Quantum leap is generally misused.

[It's Not Rocket Surgery!]

Walla!
Ect.

[Andy L]

Actually, me is used when you are the object of a sentence. Myself is used when you are the subject of a sentence which involves a reflexive verb.



Oops - you're right; at least my examples were correct.

[Mahna Mahna]

No, I wouldn't. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term "African-American" has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean "black".

Perhaps if you're American... but I assure you that the rest of the world seems to do pretty well in distinguishing "black" and "African" from "African-American".

I think it's fair to say that the term African-American is used almost exclusively to describe black people in America (as opposed to, say, Americans who are descended from Ismaili muslims from East Africa, Boer Dutch colonits from South Africa, or Sephadic Jews from Morocco)... but just because A=B doesn't mean that B=A.

[Petrobey Mavromihalis]

Everyone seems convinced that toilets drain in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere.This was probably one of the first well known "facts" that I found out was utterly wrong. I was a teenager at the time and it really altered the way I looked at the world. Since then its become a pet peeve of mine.

I once read a book by Jon Snow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Snow), a respected UK news reader and journalist, that perpetuated this myth. Even though it was only a passing aside I politely emailed him to say it was wrong. He replied that I was mistaken because a) he had seen it happen, and b) he'd just done a straw poll with his colleagues and they all agreed. I replied back with a bunch of links proving his error and got no further responses. I still like the guy, but it's interesting that even people who apparently strive for accuracy can be blind to the truth.

[put down the sabre]

<snip>

but just because A=B doesn't mean that B=A.

Err... what?

pdts

[Really Not All That Bright]

Err... what?

pdts
I think he means that just because all African-Americans are black, it doesn't mean all blacks are African-American. Better phrased as "all A=B; all B =/= A"

[Mahna Mahna]

Err... what?

pdts

Sorry, that's what I get for posting before I've finished my first coffee.

What RNATB said (except for the part about me being a he... because last I checked, I'm very much female :) )

[Really Not All That Bright]

What RNATB said (except for the part about me being a he... because last I checked, I'm very much female :) )
While we apologise for the error, the edit window has now closed. Please make the necessary changes and move on. :D

[Sampiro]

"A dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's" is one I've heard I don't know how many thousand times. (It ain't.)

[Sampiro]

Both in real life and on the SDMB people often make some remark about how in historic times you'd be considered elderly at 30 (or some other fairly young age) and would surely be in the grave at 40.

I've actually known college professors (not in history admittedly) to use this one, and it pops up on TV now and again. The simplest look at famous people should correct this one- hell, Eleanor of Aquitaine bore 11 children, went on campaign, and was locked away in a castle for many years and still managed to make it into her 80s, and if you visit cemeteries from the 18th century you'll see plenty of graves of noventarians and even occasional centenarians.

A related one that irks me is the notion that women dying in childbirth was a pretty much everyday occurrence. True it was definitely a lot more common than it is now, and true it was a leading cause of death for women in their teens through menopause (still is for that matter), but the vast majority of women did NOT die in childbirth, and while most people would certainly have known somebody who had a child die in infancy or childhood, most probably would not have known a woman who died giving birth.

---------

Another historical one I've heard a lot recently was about Abraham Lincoln being born in poverty in a one room cabin. This is not exactly untrue, but it's not that simple. True, he was born in a tiny one room cabin, but that's because the law stated that farmers taking advantage of the ceded lands like Tom & Nancy Lincoln had to erect a house on their property immediately if they wanted to file their claims (this was to keep land speculators from snatching up 45,000 acres by just paying poor people to sign up for land and then buying it for next to nothing; a house meant that the people were going to live there), and consequently farmers would build the quickest house they could, which was tiny. You can always go back and add to it or build another one later (and the Lincolns did).
In the second place, while the Lincolns always lived in log cabins, so did pretty much everybody else on the frontier and many people east of the Appalachians. The mansions that survive as house museums with beautiful carved banisters and marble fireplace mantels and the like belonged not to the well to do but to the VERY WELL TO DO, the Donald Trumps and Steve Jobs's of their day (though perhaps not as famous); most people in towns and in the country lived in very simple houses that were usually worth a maximum of a few hundred dollars and often not that. Farmhouses were so simple that it was common for farmers to burn them down when moving in order to recoup the nails, hinges, and other iron hardware. So, while Tom Lincoln was poor by our standards and certainly wasn't rich by teh standards of his own day, he would have been something like 'middle class' for his time and place.

[Lamia]

When Star Trek: Voyager premiered alot of articles mentioned the fact that Tuvok was the first African-American Vulcan. He's not even human.Are you sure they didn't just mean "the first African-American actor to play a Vulcan"? I don't know if the actor in question is actually African-American (he's obviously black, but could be Canadian for all I know), but I'd think it was his background and not the character's that was considered noteworthy.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Are you sure they didn't just mean "the first African-American actor to play a Vulcan"? I don't know if the actor in question is actually African-American (he's obviously black, but could be Canadian for all I know), but I'd think it was his background and not the character's that was considered noteworthy.

That would depend on who was making the observation. I recall more than a few persons complaining that thre could not be black Vulcans, based on the fact that we had seen, oh, two dozen or so, and of course the had to be typical of the species in every way.

[Rack-a-Bones]

Free Ballard!

Lutefisk!

In references to celestial objects, I frequently hear a figure that's impossibly close or impossibly far away. Examples:

1) Several Twilight Zone episodes featured an Earthlike planet (or "asteroid") that was supposedly something like "ten million miles from Earth".

2) I've got the National Geographic Channel on. Interesting docudrama about the Space Race. There's a promo for another show, with the narrator saying: "When you wish upon a star, even at the speed of light, it would take your wish five million years to get there!" WTF? Where the Hell did they get that figure?

I think everyone missed the point. What is the speed of a wish? My wishes and dreams travel at infinity times the speed of light

[Munch]

My wishes and dreams travel at infinity times the speed of light

You wish.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Lutefisk!



I think everyone missed the point. What is the speed of a wish?


Infinitely slow. For example: I shall now wish that Natalie Portman was standing before me doing an erotic dance. I predict that wish shall not be answered.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I think everyone missed the point. What is the speed of a wish? My wishes and dreams travel at infinity times the speed of light
I don't think that's a mistake, exactly, then. The guy was saying that even if your wish travelled at the speed of light it would take 5 million years to get there. If your wishes travel faster, more power to you.

I think my criticism- that you can't wish on a star 5 million light years away because you can't see it- is much more sensible. :cool:

[KneadToKnow]

Getting the names of things wrong.

You walked into this building. The gorram letters on the front of it are two gorram feet tall. How can you not know the name of the building?

And this one from earlier today: It's Microsoft Word. I just told you the name of the program. Stop calling it Words before I beat you to death with the mouse.

[maladroit]

when people say "mano a mano" and mean man to man, not "hand to hand" which is different (and correct)

[fachverwirrt]

Many people who ought to know better (like educators and education students and education professors) constantly get their behavioral theory terminology wrong.

Specifically, "negative reinforcement". Most will correctly identify rewarding good behavior as "positive reinforcement" (although, I suspect, for entirely the wrong reasons), but will then go and identify punishing bad behavior as "negative reinforcement". It's not. It's punishment. Negative reinforcement is when you reinforce a behavior by taking something away from the situation: e.g. a night off from chores for a good grade. Positive reinforcement is reinforcing a behavior by adding something: e.g. praise for good behavior. Positive and negative are entirely mathematical and have nothing to do with the subjective assessment of either the behavior or the consequent. You can positively reinforce bad behavior: e.g. yelling at a kid who is acting out to gain adult attention is giving him exactly what he wants; that's positive reinforcement.

While it may be true that reinforcing good behavior is more effective than punishing bad behavior, there is nothing inherently wrong with "negative" reinforcement, and I really wish that people who are supposed to know these things would get this right.

(I should note that whether a consequent is reinforcement or punishment (or neither) is entirely dependent upon future changes in behavior, so you can't even really judge what an action is in the moment anyway. That's getting a bit far afield, though.)

[Cardinal]

"Until Columbus, people thought the earth was flat." It's said many times as if it's a well known fact, which perhaps it is, but at least on the Dope I don't have to belabor the fact that it's a completely false fact.BMW was running radio ads that said that for a while. I was screaming at the radio.

[Kolga]

Many people who ought to know better (like educators and education students and education professors) constantly get their behavioral theory terminology wrong.

Specifically, "negative reinforcement". Most will correctly identify rewarding good behavior as "positive reinforcement" (although, I suspect, for entirely the wrong reasons), but will then go and identify punishing bad behavior as "negative reinforcement". It's not. It's punishment. Negative reinforcement is when you reinforce a behavior by taking something away from the situation: e.g. a night off from chores for a good grade. Positive reinforcement is reinforcing a behavior by adding something: e.g. praise for good behavior. Positive and negative are entirely mathematical and have nothing to do with the subjective assessment of either the behavior or the consequent. You can positively reinforce bad behavior: e.g. yelling at a kid who is acting out to gain adult attention is giving him exactly what he wants; that's positive reinforcement.


Wow, are you me? This makes me insane.

[Freddy the Pig]

I think my criticism- that you can't wish on a star 5 million light years away because you can't see it- is much more sensible.I only wish on stars in remote galaxies that I can't see, but I'm very, very weird.

[Rigamarole]

Really, can you point me to the discussion on this?

Here's one (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=377920)

(ugh, I'm trying to find more but the search function has crapped out on me twice in a row now after waiting 5 minutes between searches)

I'm not saying it's not a little ridiculous, I think it is too, but common usage in the U.S. uses the terms African-American and black interchangeably. I'm just being a descriptivist.

[Cardinal]

"A microwave oven operates at 2.45 GHz. This is because a water molecule resonates at 2.45 GHz." Nope. Wrong.This is what I got from the "Why Things Are" books. Could you give a better view?

[cmosdes]

This is what I got from the "Why Things Are" books. Could you give a better view?
Try here. (http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:HgdXnTAvLPYJ:ocw.kfupm.edu.sa/user062%255CEE40701%255CMicrowave%2520oven_2/Microwave_cooker.doc+why+microwave+oven+operates+at+2.45ghz&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us)

[cmosdes]

"When it comes to electrocution, voltage doesn't matter... only the current matters." Not true; both are in-play.Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I can grab hold (properly isolated, of course) of a Van de Graf generator and be just fine (10,000 volts). If I grab a current source of just a few milli-amps I'm dead, regardless of the voltage.

High voltage, low current = no problem.
High current, regardless of voltage = big problem.

[Captain Carrot]

I'm not saying it's not a little ridiculous, I think it is too, but common usage in the U.S. uses the terms African-American and black interchangeably. I'm just being a descriptivist.

A. Common usage in the US centers on black people in the US, who can usually be fairly described with that word.
B. Common usage doesn't make something right.

[Morbo]

It's three things.

1) People tend to say "for all intensive purposes" when it should be "for all intents and purposes,"
2) As you mentioned, decimated is used wrong (means to reduce by 1/10.)
3) Using "peoples" instead of "people" cause it sounds "cooler" or something.

Two more:

4) It's smallpox
5) Smallpox wiped out about half of them over 20 years. (Making the misuse of decimated more irritating). Cortés slaughtered a fair share of the rest.

[Skald the Rhymer]

It's three things.

1) People tend to say "for all intensive purposes" when it should be "for all intents and purposes,"
2) As you mentioned, decimated is used wrong (means to reduce by 1/10.)
3) Using "peoples" instead of "people" cause it sounds "cooler" or something.

Wouldn't tht depend on the context? If Megatron is threatening the inhabitants of the continent north of the Panama canal with annihilation unless we hand over Megan Fox, he may well say: "Peoples of North America--hear now and obey!" Because, you see, the Canadians are a people, and so are the Americans, and so are the Mexicans, and so forth

On the other hand, if I and the rest of the training staff go out to lunch together, there are 5 persons in our party.

[Sternvogel]

Do you really want to despair? A representative of the Tuskegee Airmen found it necessary to issue this statement.

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.war.world-war-ii/browse_thread/thread/f928ea38c3a70d2a


Btw, from what I read, the men denied treatment were at the stage where the syphillis was no longer transmittable. I don't know how true that is, though.

From your own cite (bolding mine):

By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of
syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives
had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with
congenital syphilis.

Apparently at least some of the subjects had transmittable syphilis.

[Sampiro]

Another historical error that I've heard way more times than I can recount:

The reason the Americans won the Revolutionary War was because the British marched in a horizontal line wearing bright red coats while Americans hid behind rocks and trees and picked them off using geurilla tactics. Utter rubbish: the British had been fighting wars in North America for more than a century by this time and that horizontal line, which was not used in every battle, was actually one of the deadliest fighting maneuvers of its day.

Similar: The Nazis lost against the Soviets because they were unprepared for a Russian winter.
Truth: The Nazis were better equipped for the Russian winter than the Soviet army was in terms of supplies and clothing (it wasn't like "Russia gets really really cold and snowy" was a secret to them). They lost mostly due to a combination of very bad generalship (going all the way up the chain to Hitler) and because the Soviets fought like hell (partly from fear of Hitler partly from fear of Stalin).

OTOH, in defense of America, I had a history prof in an upper level undergrad course who swore that by the time America entered WW2 the Germans had already been fought to a standstill and the war was a waiting game. While it's very true that the French and British hadn't been running around crying "Oh mercy me whatever will we do?" for 2.5 years, it's also unarguable that without America joining the fray the war would have taken a WHHHOOOOLE lot longer and could easily have been won by Hitler.


And then there's the popular one down here: Rome fell due to immorality (drugs, homosexuality, weird sex in general, incest, etc.). Yep, you're right- it's quite that simple: no need to look at any kind of climate or economic or military or sociological or trade or disease or any other kinds of trends, it was the degenerates purely and simply (never mind that Caligula and Nero and Eliogabalus and the other "REALLY out there" degenerate rulers had been dead for centuries by the time it fell).

[crazyjoe]

"Giving little children sugar, especially at night, makes them hyperactive." Countless studies have shown that this is not true; it has no affect on them.

Countless?

As a parent, I can assure you that I have performed numerous empirical studies on this, and my study results trump your countless others.

Someone once pointed me to a study that said that a one year old should be able to, unassisted, drink from an open topped cup without spilling. I've been alive for nearly 40 years and I have NEVER seen one who could do this.

You want reasons for why people don't beleive that Autism is caused by vaccines? This is one of them....studies that take something people have observed time and time again, such as the effects of sugar on kids, and tell people it doesn't happen. You might as well put out a study saying that the earth is flat.

[Sternvogel]

In another thread, I saw two references to "Tinkers to Evers to Chance". The shortstop in that double-play combination of yore was Joe Tinker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Tinker).

While I bemoan extraneous apostrophes, one place where the possessive mark of punctuation should appear is in the name of a certain Tennessee whiskey. Since the founder of the distillery was Jack Daniel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel), the spirit is Jack Daniel's, not Jack Daniels.

[Sigmagirl]

True, and your jeans are Levi's, not Levis.

[Rigamarole]

B. Common usage doesn't make something right.

Sorry but until you show me the language divinities' decree, I'm going with language as being a descriptivist and not a prescriptivist endeavor.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Sorry but until you show me the language divinities' decree, I'm going with language as being a descriptivist and not a prescriptivist endeavor.

I tend toward the descriptivist model myself, but few things are absolute. When a particular usage of a term is either self-contradictor or so at odds with the reality its meant to be describing, then that usage should be abandoned. Often they're not, because of stupid people--and yes, I'm looking at you, Katie Couric!

Or whover the NCB newscaster I heard refer to someone as Kenya as "African-American." It may well been Campbell Brown, but I'm not about to insult HER, so Katite gets the ire.

[Rigamarole]

I tend toward the descriptivist model myself, but few things are absolute. When a particular usage of a term is either self-contradictor or so at odds with the reality its meant to be describing, then that usage should be abandoned. Often they're not, because of stupid people--and yes, I'm looking at you, Katie Couric!

Or whover the NCB newscaster I heard refer to someone as Kenya as "African-American." It may well been Campbell Brown, but I'm not about to insult HER, so Katite gets the ire.

You're probably right, and I concede that it's a pretty extreme example. I'm more irked by an overall sense of prescriptivism in this thread and board as a whole so I purposely pointed out a blatantly logic-defying example, but I'll give it up here. I am, however, working up a pitting over aforementioned prescriptivist activities on the board in general, to be released shortly.

[Captain Carrot]

You want reasons for why people don't beleive that Autism is caused by vaccines? This is one of them....studies that take something people have observed time and time again, such as the effects of sugar on kids, and tell people it doesn't happen. You might as well put out a study saying that the earth is flat.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Someone once pointed me to a study that said that a one year old should be able to, unassisted, drink from an open topped cup without spilling. I've been alive for nearly 40 years and I have NEVER seen one who could do this.
I'm 26 and I can't do that.
True, and your jeans are Levi's, not Levis.
Hey! You're right!

[fachverwirrt]

True, and your jeans are Levi's, not Levis.

Actually, my jeans are Wranglers.

[flex727]

Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I can grab hold (properly isolated, of course) of a Van de Graf generator and be just fine (10,000 volts). If I grab a current source of just a few milli-amps I'm dead, regardless of the voltage.

High voltage, low current = no problem.
High current, regardless of voltage = big problem.
It's all about Ohm's Law (I=V/R). It takes voltage to drive current, given a specific resistance (the human body, i.e. you).

[RAWDuke]

I'm going to welcome myself back to the SDMB with this one:

"The U.S. Constitution is based on the 10 Commandments"

A guy I work with tried this one out a couple of years ago. Yep! I really enjoyed the graven images clause.

[freckafree]

Affect is a verb. The one you're looking for is effect, which is a noun (and a verb).

Actually, me is used when you are the object of a sentence. Myself is used when you are the subject of a sentence which involves a reflexive verb.



Affect can be a noun, too -- e.g., "absence of affect"

The me/myself thing bugs the crap out of me, too. Or should I say "bugs the crap out of myself"? :D Of course, sometimes I do bug the crap out of myself, but that's not the issue.

[garygnu]

For all intensive purposes, Small Pox utterly decimated the Mayan peoples.
Are you complaining about the incorrect use of "decimated", "intensive" or where the Mayas wiped out by something else?

edit: I assume it's the latter.

Here's one that bug the crap out of me: when referring to the people or the culture, it's the "Maya." Nothing more, nothing less, just "Maya." Not "Mayan," that refers only to their language, and not "the Mayas."

Just.

Maya.

[cmosdes]

It's all about Ohm's Law (I=V/R). It takes voltage to drive current, given a specific resistance (the human body, i.e. you).So what is the lethal voltage for a person? In order to answer that, you'll need to know the human body resistance and the lethal level of current. Again, your just working backwards from the lethal current to find a voltage. Which brings me back to my original point. You can easily survive high voltage across your body. You cannot survive high current. Current kills.

[Miller]

You're probably right, and I concede that it's a pretty extreme example. I'm more irked by an overall sense of prescriptivism in this thread and board as a whole so I purposely pointed out a blatantly logic-defying example, but I'll give it up here. I am, however, working up a pitting over aforementioned prescriptivist activities on the board in general, to be released shortly.

Actually, I agree with you. Linguistically speaking, "black" and "African American" are interchangable. If that's how those terms are used, then that's what those terms mean. Linguistically speaking.

However, historically, socially, and politically, it's an incredibly idiotic mistake, and should be stamped out with great prejudice.

[Shayna]

The idiom to "eat like a bird (http://esl.about.com/library/glossary/bldef_401.htm)", meaning, you hardly eat anything, is a factual error that drives me nuts. Explanation: Used when speaking about someone who needs very little food to get by, often used when criticizing someone for not eating enough.

Birds eat a LOT. Anywhere from 1/3 of (http://books.google.com/books?id=f1UlXrOFgLgC&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=how+much+do+birds+eat+relative+body+weight&source=bl&ots=T6a5dxl3SG&sig=k2MJfXutTVXKzmYujSrfzo_FCms&hl=en&ei=j12fSZXsLqCSsQPgrrjYCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result), to 3 times their own body weight (http://books.google.com/books?id=Turj2PC-_c4C&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=how+much+do+birds+eat+relative+body+weight&source=bl&ots=zZtOzbPTNe&sig=cvkQhn6rR1wy_-SGS9qcDhvAXUM&hl=en&ei=bl2fSeqAK5KWsQOv-6naCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result) per day! . . . a 180-pound man would have to eat 100 pounds of meat each day to approximate the nutrient requirements of [sparrow-sized sandpipers]. . .

[Captain Carrot]

The idiom to "eat like a bird (http://esl.about.com/library/glossary/bldef_401.htm)", meaning, you hardly eat anything, is a factual error that drives me nuts.

Birds eat a LOT. Anywhere from 1/3 of (http://books.google.com/books?id=f1UlXrOFgLgC&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=how+much+do+birds+eat+relative+body+weight&source=bl&ots=T6a5dxl3SG&sig=k2MJfXutTVXKzmYujSrfzo_FCms&hl=en&ei=j12fSZXsLqCSsQPgrrjYCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result), to 3 times their own body weight (http://books.google.com/books?id=Turj2PC-_c4C&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=how+much+do+birds+eat+relative+body+weight&source=bl&ots=zZtOzbPTNe&sig=cvkQhn6rR1wy_-SGS9qcDhvAXUM&hl=en&ei=bl2fSeqAK5KWsQOv-6naCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result) per day!But that's still not very much. Sometimes it's useful to examine things relative to us rather than the native environment.

[Chronos]

So what is the lethal voltage for a person? In order to answer that, you'll need to know the human body resistance and the lethal level of current. Again, your just working backwards from the lethal current to find a voltage. Which brings me back to my original point. You can easily survive high voltage across your body. You cannot survive high current. Current kills.And what's the lethal current? In order to know that, you'll need to know the human body's resistance and the lethal level of voltage.

Nope, doesn't make any more sense that way. If you've got a large potential difference across a resistor, you'll also have a large current through it, and vice-versa. You can't say that a human would be killed by "high current at low voltage", because there is no such thing.

[Richard Pearse]

Actually, I agree with you. Linguistically speaking, "black" and "African American" are interchangable. If that's how those terms are used, then that's what those terms mean. Linguistically speaking.

However, historically, socially, and politically, it's an incredibly idiotic mistake, and should be stamped out with great prejudice.
Well said. Yes they may be interchangeable in the US, but that doesn't stop it from being offensive to blacks who aren't American anything. So as you say, it may be linguistically accepted but not socially acceptable outside the US. And if people use it that way when talking about non-American blacks, they're still displaying a certain amount of ignorance and lack of political awareness. It also makes Americans look dumb and insular which reinforces the stereotypical image of Americans which is not a good thing.

[Lamia]

Actually, I agree with you. Linguistically speaking, "black" and "African American" are interchangable. If that's how those terms are used, then that's what those terms mean. Linguistically speaking.Whenever this subject comes up, it seems to me that people badly exaggerate how often "African-American" is used to refer to people who are black but not American. Sure, this happens sometimes, but not that often, and when it does it's just a mistake.

This does remind me of another factual error, although one that is not so blatantly an error anymore. Whenever discussion of the term "African-American" comes up, someone always seems to think it's very clever to refer to actress Charlize Theron as an "African-American". I can't search at the moment, but here on the SDMB I'm sure one could find many examples of this...from well before Theron was naturalized as an American citizen. Even now it would be a non-standard use of the term to call her "African-American", but until mid-2007 she was just South African and not any kind of American at all.

[Runs With Scissors]

That Super Bowl Sunday is the day of the most violence against women.

[RickJay]

Countless?

As a parent, I can assure you that I have performed numerous empirical studies on this, and my study results trump your countless others.
So've I. The study is right. Sugar doesn't make kids hyper.

From the moment she was born my parents, my father in law, everyone would say if she ate anything sugary, "Well, she's got some sugar in her, she'll go nuts" but I'd already heard it might not be true, so for years I've made a point of being very careful to see if sugar was likelier to make the Small One hyper. For awhile I even wrote down my observations.

She is no more or less likely to get hyper or gain noticeable amounts of energy after she eats something sugary than at any other time. People NOTICE when kids get hyper after eating something, but they don't notice when it doesn't happen. It's observational bias.

[Odesio]

Seeing Lewis Hamilton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hamilton) referred to as an "African American" by American journalist always makes me cringe.


I've heard Nelson Mandela referred to as an African American before.

[Vox Imperatoris]

I knew somebody would say that :smack:. I don't know what the "Alt +" thing for an e with an acute accent is.

Hijack: A much easier way is to turn on your "US-International" keyboard and go from there. Go to Control Panel—Regional and Language Options—Change Keyboards, and add the US-International one. All you have to do then is press ' and then the letter to put the accent on it, e.g. ' and e gives é. The really cool part is that it also works with other characters; for example, " puts umlauts on vowels, like " and u gives ü; ^ does that î thing; ` does the reverse accent mark, like à; and ~ gives a tilde, like ã or ñ. You can also press Alt to type other special characters, like Alt and l for ø; a full chart is here (http://www.starr.net/is/type/intlchart.html). And the only thing you have to do to switch between the regular and international keyboards once you add it is press Ctrl-Shift. It's pretty cool.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

[Rand Rover]

It drives me nuts when people think that the price of something necessarily bears a relationship to the costs to produce it (as if the manufacturer just calculates its costs and then adds a percentage for profit).

[Malacandra]

That would depend on who was making the observation. I recall more than a few persons complaining that thre could not be black Vulcans, based on the fact that we had seen, oh, two dozen or so, and of course the had to be typical of the species in every way.

I gave it a Spock-like :dubious: based not on that but that I'd understood Vulcan's sun to be red. Not enough UV for sunburn. Of course this assumes that UV resistance is the only reason for black skin, and makes no allowance for the many colours of Barsoomians, but at the time I thought it was illogical and they were giving us a Black Vulcan just because.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Affect can be a noun, too -- e.g., "absence of affect"

The me/myself thing bugs the crap out of me, too. Or should I say "bugs the crap out of myself"? :D Of course, sometimes I do bug the crap out of myself, but that's not the issue.

And "effect" can be a verb, meaning "to cause to come into being" or "to bring about; to accomplish."

[Hellestal]

"It's just a theory."

[Skald the Rhymer]

"It's just a theory."

Can we get some context for that?

I agree that that's an annoying statement in reference to, say, evolution, but not if I'm admitting that the supposition I just offered is as of yet unproven.

[Skald the Rhymer]

I gave it a Spock-like :dubious: based not on that but that I'd understood Vulcan's sun to be red. Not enough UV for sunburn. Of course this assumes that UV resistance is the only reason for black skin, and makes no allowance for the many colours of Barsoomians, but at the time I thought it was illogical and they were giving us a Black Vulcan just because.

"Just because" of what? Why shouldn't Vulcans come in more than one skin tone?

[RickJay]

"It's just a theory."
But evolution IS a theory. The speaker may not know what a theory is in scientific terms (gravity is "just a theory" in terms of its scientific explanation, but only the intelligent falling people doubt it exists) but the statement is not actually false.

[Hellestal]

But evolution IS a theory. The speaker may not know what a theory is in scientific terms (gravity is "just a theory" in terms of its scientific explanation, but only the intelligent falling people doubt it exists) but the statement is not actually false.The statement isn't false.

The implicit assumptions behind the statement are factually incorrect in every way. They are so monstrously wrong that there are no others errors I know that convey so much ignorance in so little space.

[Skald the Rhymer]

The statement isn't false.

The implicit assumptions behind the statement are factually incorrect in every way. They are so monstrously wrong that there are no others errors I know that convey so much ignorance in so little space.

What makes the statement problematic is the word "just," I think. That and the fact that it's always uttered by idiots.

[Captain Carrot]

It drives me nuts when people think that the price of something necessarily bears a relationship to the costs to produce it (as if the manufacturer just calculates its costs and then adds a percentage for profit).What are you proposing as the mechanism?

Affect can be a noun, too -- e.g., "absence of affect"But virtually nobody ever uses that sense. At least, I've never heard it.

[alexandra]

These people think they're saying is sufficiently dismissive- like saying "It's just a hypothesis" would be.

You want reasons for why people don't beleive that Autism is caused by vaccines? This is one of them....studies that take something people have observed time and time again, such as the effects of sugar on kids, and tell people it doesn't happen. You might as well put out a study saying that the earth is flat.

I assume you meant reasons why people DO believe autism is caused by vaccines...since the scientific evidence confirms the opposite.

Don't people wonder about all those unobserved children who had the MMR vaccine and didn't turn out to be autistic?

[Rick]

So what is the lethal voltage for a person? In order to answer that, you'll need to know the human body resistance and the lethal level of current. Again, your just working backwards from the lethal current to find a voltage. Which brings me back to my original point. You can easily survive high voltage across your body. You cannot survive high current. Current kills.
We have done this one before. A car battery is capable of delivering hundreds upon hundreds of amps all at one in an instant. Yet you can grab the positive pole in one hand and the negative pole in your other hand. Not only will you not die, you won't feel a thing. As the current would have to flow directly across your chest to get from one hand to the other, if what you are saying is correct, you would expect ... something. In reality, nothing happens. This is due to the resistance of your body (skin mainly I believe) being high enough that the voltage drop across the resistance renders a zero or near zero current flow.

[Really Not All That Bright]

What are you proposing as the mechanism?
I think he's suggesting that the price of a product is determined by the amount people are willing to pay, not by how much it costs to produce.

I suppose what he's saying is inaccurate in a wider sense- lots of companies that manufacturers of consumer products sell high-end items that they actually sell at a loss in order to enhance the overall image (automakers, for example). Still, in general terms, it's silly to suggest that manufacturing cost has no bearing on price.

[Really Not All That Bright]

"Just because" of what? Why shouldn't Vulcans come in more than one skin tone?
Meh. Be a bit odd if melanin response evolved independently on different planets.

While there are general variations in color in just about every species on earth, there isn't as wide a range as seen in humans for the most part.

[Wiggie]

Countless?

As a parent, I can assure you that I have performed numerous empirical studies on this, and my study results trump your countless others.

Someone once pointed me to a study that said that a one year old should be able to, unassisted, drink from an open topped cup without spilling. I've been alive for nearly 40 years and I have NEVER seen one who could do this.

You want reasons for why people don't beleive that Autism is caused by vaccines? This is one of them....studies that take something people have observed time and time again, such as the effects of sugar on kids, and tell people it doesn't happen. You might as well put out a study saying that the earth is flat.

My numerous empirical studies show that every parent that believes this will often make exclamations about the correlation between dietary sugar and misbehaving children when koolaid or M&Ms are involved, but never when apple juice or an orange are involved.

Despite the fact that all four are loaded with sugar.

[Lamia]

Affect can be a noun, too -- e.g., "absence of affect"
But virtually nobody ever uses that sense. At least, I've never heard it.I've heard it many times, but then again my mother is a psychologist.

It's not common in ordinary conversation, but "affect" is the clinical term used to describe emotional expression. Someone suffering from depression, for instance, might be described as displaying a lack of affect, or more properly blunt or flat affect.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Meh. Be a bit odd if melanin response evolved independently on different planets.

While there are general variations in color in just about every species on earth, there isn't as wide a range as seen in humans for the most part.

I note that Vulcans, like Terrans, Klingons, Cardassians, Bajorans, Betazeds, Andorians, Tellarites, Jem-hadr, Vorta, whatever the hell Kes was, and whatever the hell Neelix was, have four fingers plus a thumb on each hand. Not four fingers and two thumbs, or six fingers and one thumb, or three finges and one thumb, etc. Why is that any less improbable?

[Really Not All That Bright]

It's not common in ordinary conversation, but "affect" is the clinical term used to describe emotional expression. Someone suffering from depression, for instance, might be described as displaying a lack of affect, or more properly blunt or flat affect.
I'll grant you that affect exists as a verb in a technical setting, but the post I quoted did not use it in that sense. Affect as a noun in general usage is obsolete.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I note that Vulcans, like Terrans, Klingons, Cardassians, Bajorans, Betazeds, Andorians, Tellarites, Jem-hadr, Vorta, whatever the hell Kes was, and whatever the hell Neelix was, have four fingers plus a thumb on each hand. Not four fingers and two thumbs, or six fingers and one thumb, or three finges and one thumb, etc. Why is that any less improbable?
It's quite possible that there's a good anatomical explanation why 4/1 is a somehow optimal arrangement of digits in an intelligent life form. However, it's probably just more likely that there are no SAG members with seven fingers on each hand.

[Skald the Rhymer]

What are you proposing as the mechanism?


Seriously? Supply and demand primarily, and the whim of the entrepreneur as the other.

Both of those are valid. I do SAT & ACT tutoring on the side. the more options a potential student finds acceptable for receiving the service I offer, the more I am going to have to lower my prices. The fewer alternatives a prospect finds acceptable, the more I can raise them.

And, of course, I have an attitude rider. If the student or his/her parenst pisses me off early on, I charge more. If I like the student or his/parents, or identify with them in some way, I'll cut them a deal if needed. Hell, if I am having a good month and think the kid is cool, I'll do it for a nominal price.

Why should it be any different?


But virtually nobody ever uses that sense. At least, I've never heard it.

I hear it affect used in that sense all the time. But I may hang around more counselors, therapists, & persons in counseling or therapy than you.

[Skald the Rhymer]

It's quite possible that there's a good anatomical explanation why 4/1 is a somehow optimal arrangement of digits in an intelligent life form. However, it's probably just more likely that there are no SAG members with seven fingers on each hand.

But there are plenty of SAG members with skin tones other than the European norm. Why shouldn't they be hired to play Vulcans? Why must Vulcans be portayed as all being Caucasian with slightly greenish skin?

[Really Not All That Bright]

But there are plenty of SAG members with skin tones other than the European norm. Why shouldn't they be hired to play Vulcans? Why must Vulcans be portayed as all being Caucasian with slightly greenish skin?
I was mostly kidding, you know.

My WAG is that Vulcans look like white people simply because all the people who've been hired to play Vulcans are white. Note that the Vulcan characters all tend to speak with similar intonation- a sort of Received-English-cum-wildlife-documentary-narrator type accent.

A bit like Roman characters in English-language films (see Gladiator), they all sound like they're from English public (private) schools, for no apparent reason.

I would guess that it's pretty hard to find black actors who sound like that, though obviously not impossible.

On the other hand, Klingons all seem to be baritones with a different but more easily faked non-accent (you know, more guttural), and are generally physically imposing, and it's not difficult to find large actors with deep voices, so there are plenty of black ones handy.

[ZenBeam]

Meh. Be a bit odd if melanin response evolved independently on different planets.

While there are general variations in color in just about every species on earth, there isn't as wide a range as seen in humans for the most part.Humans occupy a wide range of latitudes, hence a wide range of solar radiation, and humans do not have much fur. I can't immediately think of another species with those characteristics.

It's not implausible that other species which occupy a wide range of latitude, and which do not have fur, so that their skin is exposed, will often or usually have a similar variation of skin color Vs. latitude.

[Skald the Rhymer]

I was mostly kidding, you know.


We Rhymers never kid. We are entirely without senses of humor. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas the Rhymer (yes that one) established that rule when he founded the tribe; he sacrificed our sense of humor in exchange for the power to defeat Merlin in single combat.

[Really Not All That Bright]

My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas the Rhymer (yes that one) established that rule when he founded the tribe; he sacrificed our sense of humor in exchange for the power to defeat Merlin in single combat.
Did he make a *whoosh* noise while delivering the killing blow? :D

[Skald the Rhymer]

Did he make a *whoosh* noise while delivering the killing blow? :D

I said "defeat," not kill. If you were all that bright, you'd know that it is impossible to kill Merlin before Ragnarok.

I'd explain why, but I'm running low on bullshit and must recharge.

[Zsofia]

Oh, this one drives me nuts. You hung a picture, you hanged a cattle rustler. Who may or may not have been well hung.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Oh, this one drives me nuts. You hung a picture, you hanged a cattle rustler. Who may or may not have been well hung.
Not strictly true. If the cattle rustler was strung up as capital punishment, hanged is correct. If you just stapled his chaps to a tree for shits and giggles, the correct form would be hung. :D

[Zsofia]

No, the correct form would be "stapled". :)

[Cardinal]

Similar: The Nazis lost against the Soviets because they were unprepared for a Russian winter.
Truth: The Nazis were better equipped for the Russian winter than the Soviet army was in terms of supplies and clothing (it wasn't like "Russia gets really really cold and snowy" was a secret to them). They lost mostly due to a combination of very bad generalship (going all the way up the chain to Hitler) and because the Soviets fought like hell (partly from fear of Hitler partly from fear of Stalin). I've heard numerous times from "reputable" sources that Hitler insisted the main fighting would be over by winter, and didn't allow for the massive shipments of cold-weather gear. Also, a tie goes to the defender, and I've seen documentaries saying that the Germans were still on the move when the rains hit, which then started to freeze, making it a double whammy. Are you saying that's not true?

[garygnu]

I think there's a middle ground there. They were not "unprepared," but the Russian winter still hit 'em damn hard.
Either way, the Nazis fell victim to one of the classic blunders...

[Martini Enfield]

I think there's a middle ground there. They were not "unprepared," but the Russian winter still hit 'em damn hard.
Either way, the Nazis fell victim to one of the classic blunders...

They got involved in Land Wars in Asia? :D

I'll get my coat...

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

It bugs me when sportswriters (and others) use the term "All-American" to refer to a player that has been selected to an "All-America" team. You wouldn't call an "All-City" player an "All-Citizen" (or some such) would you?

"All-American" is what Richie Cunningham and apple pie are.

However, it is conceivable that a superb athlete selected to an All-America team happens to also be as All-American as apple pie... but most probably aren't. Say, for example, they were born and lived most of their life in another country. That's not very All-American to me, yet they could still be selected to an All-America team.

[Animastryfe]

So've I. The study is right. Sugar doesn't make kids hyper.

From the moment she was born my parents, my father in law, everyone would say if she ate anything sugary, "Well, she's got some sugar in her, she'll go nuts" but I'd already heard it might not be true, so for years I've made a point of being very careful to see if sugar was likelier to make the Small One hyper. For awhile I even wrote down my observations.

She is no more or less likely to get hyper or gain noticeable amounts of energy after she eats something sugary than at any other time. People NOTICE when kids get hyper after eating something, but they don't notice when it doesn't happen. It's observational bias.

Also, I think that some kids' behaviour after eating a lot of sugary foods is partly based on what they think "should" happen, or what they expect to happen. Perhaps like the placebo effect? I know that when I was very young, my friends and I would expect to be hyper, and thinking back on it now I'm sure that if influenced any hyper behaviour I may have exhibited.

[freep5637]

i hate it when people have no idea why the revolutionary war or the civil war were fought. it's pathetic....

[lissener]

Similar: The Nazis lost against the Soviets because they were unprepared for a Russian winter.
Truth: The Nazis were better equipped for the Russian winter than the Soviet army was in terms of supplies and clothing (it wasn't like "Russia gets really really cold and snowy" was a secret to them). They lost mostly due to a combination of very bad generalship (going all the way up the chain to Hitler) and because the Soviets fought like hell (partly from fear of Hitler partly from fear of Stalin).
I've been kind of obsessively absorbing WWII history for the last couple years, and all the accounts I've come across so far disagree with you. IIRC, Hitler did not supply his troops with winter clothing because that would've implied that they'd still be fighting in the winter; he thought it was better for morale for everyone to believe that the war would be over before the end of summer. Which is perfectly in keeping with much of the other stupid mistakes the Germans made on that front. Of course, it was just a factor, and probably not the biggest; the scorched-earth retreat and the nearly infinite capacity for retreat were probably greater factors.

[lissener]

I've heard numerous times from "reputable" sources that Hitler insisted the main fighting would be over by winter, and didn't allow for the massive shipments of cold-weather gear. Also, a tie goes to the defender, and I've seen documentaries saying that the Germans were still on the move when the rains hit, which then started to freeze, making it a double whammy. Are you saying that's not true?

That's my understanding too. The mud was as much a factor as the cold.

[lissener]

But evolution IS a theory. The speaker may not know what a theory is in scientific terms (gravity is "just a theory" in terms of its scientific explanation, but only the intelligent falling people doubt it exists) but the statement is not actually false.

Dude. Seriously. When someone says "evolution is just a theory," you can bet the farm that they are using the word incorrectly, and they believe that it means "hypothesis." The intent behind that statement is utterly ignorant, even if they're using a word which they don't even know can actually be used correctly in nearly the same context.

[rbroome]

The farthest stars visible to the naked eye are about 4,000 light years away. You can see the galaxy Andromeda with the naked eye, and it's 2.5 million light years away, but it's a) not a star, and b) not 5 million light years away.

I suppose you could theoretically wish upon a star while looking through a telescope, but I imagine it kinda ruins the moment.

Touché!

[BlakeTyner]

What are you proposing as the mechanism?

But virtually nobody ever uses that sense. At least, I've never heard it.

It tends to be a psychological term. "Affect" being the outward appearance or state of a person to the observer. If a patient is, say, catatonic, they would show an "absence of affect." It's used a LOT this way, but admittedly it's a bit of a niche market.

[Dusty Rose]

I have a couple that drive me crazy-

Using "literally" when someone really means "figuratively."

Saying "I seen" instead of "I saw." Sets my teeth on edge every time.

But lately, the one that drives me just batty, (and I seem to be seeing everywhere lately) is "regards" instead of "regard." You give your regards to Broadway, but you write in regard to an issue. :smack:

[judikium]

I think the misstatement of the Pythagorean theorem in WoO is a meta-joke.

While we're talking about the Pythagorean theorem, nothing irks me more than hearing someone refer to the theory that came from Pythagoras as "Pythagorean's theorem."

:smack:

[Captain Carrot]

While we're talking about the Pythagorean theorem, nothing irks me more than hearing someone refer to the theory that came from Pythagoras as "Pythagorean's theorem."

:smack:

Why? It is a theorem, and arguably the theory didn't come from him.

[Inner Stickler]

My guess is that judikium would be ok with the Pythagorean theorem or Pythagoras' Theorem, but Pythagorean's theorem is just nonsensical as the theorem is not the property of the adjectival form of Pythagoras.

[Captain Carrot]

Oh. Heh. Go go reading comprehension!

[Suburban Plankton]

They got involved in Land Wars in Asia? :D

Good guess, but no.

It's a little known fact that Stalin was actually born in Palermo.

[Skald the Rhymer]

While we're talking about the Pythagorean theorem, nothing irks me more than hearing someone refer to the theory that came from Pythagoras as "Pythagorean's theorem."

:smack:

I've never actually heard that mistake, for which I am grateful, as it would most likely send me into a venom-spitting rage. As I lack the glands to create venom, I would then have to find a cobra or something, extract the glands, and implant them into myself in order to fulfill the requirements of the tantrum, and as I am very clumsy I might well end up being bitten by the cobra, and no one would help me on account of me being an asshole. I would, thus, die as a result of hearing "Pythagorean's theorem."

[mutantmoose]

A historical error I've read many times: "Until Columbus, people thought the earth was flat." It's said many times as if it's a well known fact, which perhaps it is, but at least on the Dope I don't have to belabor the fact that it's a completely false fact.


It's a strange one this. It used to be the case that everyone thought it was a fact but now it's almost gone too far the other way - as if some people believe that no one ever thought the earth was flat.

Certainly in the west, after about the 3rd century BC, no one has thought the earth was flat. But in other parts of the world people did think the earth was flat, even until quite recently. In India the earth was thought to be flat until about 500 AD and in China it was thought the earth was flat until the 17th Century and the arrival of western astronomy.

So in a way, it's strictly almost true to say people thought the earth was flat until Colombus, even up to a hundred years after Colombus. It's got nothing to do with Colombus but there were peoples in the world who were of that view at that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

[Captain Carrot]

So in a way, it's strictly almost true to say people thought the earth was flat until Colombus, even up to a hundred years after Colombus. It's got nothing to do with Colombus but there were peoples in the world who were of that view at that time. Let's put it this way, in Columbus' time, nobody who knew what the hell he was talking about thought the Earth was flat. The dispute was over its size, and Columbus was completely wrong about that.

[Trans Fat Og]

Humans only use 10% of their brain power. (Well, maybe the people who believe that crap do...)
At this point I'm mostly subbing to threads for later responses.

But I must comment again on one of my greatest pet peeves. (It's so great a pet-peeve of mine that I immediately thought of it when I read the OP, before seeing your post. But that's not why I am posting here.)

I have two great anecdotes about how STUPID people are about this, that they not only repeat it in a mindless way, but actually add to the stupidity.

One I have already posted to a thread here many moons ago at SDMB, but I may repeat it later in this thread.

The more recent one is this:

A very intelligent (or seeming to be same) youngish woman at a natural foods co-op. recently mentioned it, and at some point, perhaps after I tried to disabuse her of it, remarked that if we did use 100% of our brains, we'd probably be so powerful that...

WE WOULDN'T NEED OUR BODIES ANYMORE!

:rolleyes:

:rolleyes:

:rolleyes:

- "Jack"

[Kevbo]

The farthest stars visible to the naked eye are about 4,000 light years away. You can see the galaxy Andromeda with the naked eye, and it's 2.5 million light years away, but it's a) not a star, and b) not 5 million light years away.

I suppose you could theoretically wish upon a star while looking through a telescope, but I imagine it kinda ruins the moment.

Probably not even then. It took a lucky long photographic exposure from the 100 inch Mt. Wilson telescope on a night of exceptional seeing to resolve individual stars in Andromeda. (which is the galaxy nearist our own Milky Way) I dont think there are any purely optical telescopes that would allow you to see extra-galactic stars by eye.

[Trans Fat Og]

When Star Trek: Voyager premiered alot of articles mentioned the fact that Tuvok was the first African-American Vulcan. He's not even human. That's worse than hearing people refer to Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first African-American president.

Mildly sarcastical :) mode on:

Minor (?) nitpick here? It depends on what was meant by the remark. An A-A Vulcan is a contradiction in (fictional) terms, to be sure, as long as we are not talking about another half-human like Spock. (And, of course, we are not.)

However, if you check either of the two bio links at the bottom of the Tim Russ Wikipedia page, you will find that his city of birth certainly suggests that he qualifies as A-A!

And that is probably what the folks who wrote the reviews actually meant. I mean, y'think?

/Mildly sarcastical :) mode off!

- "Jack"

ETA: Oops! Even though I looked for it, I missed that someone already pointed this out.

[InLucemEdita]

You missed the point: The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being born without Original Sin; it has nothing to do with the conception of Jesus.

This bothers me a little...this is the second time on the Dope that I've been told that the Immaculate Conception of Mary has nothing to do with the virgin birth of Jesus.

So it's all just a big coincidence, huh? The two things are totally unrelated is that it?

I mean, sheesh, she is supposed to have been born without sin, even though sexual intercourse was involved, and then managed to conceive the son of god (if you believe) without losing her virginity.

And these things have nothing to do with each other?

[Richard Pearse]

This bothers me a little...this is the second time on the Dope that I've been told that the Immaculate Conception of Mary has nothing to do with the virgin birth of Jesus.

So it's all just a big coincidence, huh? The two things are totally unrelated is that it?

I mean, sheesh, she is supposed to have been born without sin, even though sexual intercourse was involved, and then managed to conceive the son of god (if you believe) without losing her virginity.

And these things have nothing to do with each other?
Of course they're related. The mistake is that people think the "immaculate conception" was the conception of Jesus when it was actually the conception of Mary. So in that narrow context, the "immaculate conception" has nothing (directly) to do with the birth of Jesus.

[The Punkyova]

This bothers me a little...this is the second time on the Dope that I've been told that the Immaculate Conception of Mary has nothing to do with the virgin birth of Jesus.

So it's all just a big coincidence, huh? The two things are totally unrelated is that it?

I mean, sheesh, she is supposed to have been born without sin, even though sexual intercourse was involved, and then managed to conceive the son of god (if you believe) without losing her virginity.

And these things have nothing to do with each other?

Correct. They are independent dogma. The Catholic church accepts both of them. Protestants only accept the Virgin Birth. The Immaculate Conception is fairly recent, as doctrine goes, having been officially promulgated in 1854. Protestants tend to see it as part of a trend towards giving Mary a much bigger part in salvation. (Cf., JP II declaring Mary co-redemptrix of the world.)

So, despite the sarcastic tone of your question, you are correct. These things have nothing to do with each other.

[Askance]

But evolution IS a theory. The speaker may not know what a theory is in scientific terms (gravity is "just a theory" in terms of its scientific explanation, but only the intelligent falling people doubt it exists) but the statement is not actually false.Evolution itself is a fact. There are theories on how it occurs, but there is no doubt that it occurs.

[matt_mcl]

So, despite the sarcastic tone of your question, you are correct. These things have nothing to do with each other.

Well, they have to do with each other in the sense that Mary had to be immaculately conceived in order to be a suitable vessel to bear Jesus (as 1920s Style "Death Ray" said).

But they are, indeed, two different dogmas that are frequently confused by the name "immaculate conception" being used incorrectly for the Incarnation of Jesus.

[ftg]

I dont think there are any purely optical telescopes that would allow you to see extra-galactic stars by eye.

I just read (Bad Astronomer) Phil Plait's new book "Death From the Skies!". In the chapter on gamma ray bursts (pg 119), he mentions a 2008 gamma ray burst that was nearly 8 billion light years away and visible to the naked eye. Note that GRBs are stars (or ex-stars) going hypernova or neutron star/blackhole collisions.

[tagos]

This is not true, the people studied had advanced past the point of the treatments available at the time. The cure for syphillis was not found until well into the study. The previous treatment was ineffective and hard on the patient. The study was designed to see if not treating the disease gave better or worse outcomes than the poor treatments available at the time of the studies inception.

And when penicillin became available in 1947 they did not cure the patients and close the study down. That was the crime. That and the lack of informed consent to begin with. You are dangerously close to be an apologist for a shameful episode here.

[imfloating]

It's quite possible that there's a good anatomical explanation why 4/1 is a somehow optimal arrangement of digits in an intelligent life form. However, it's probably just more likely that there are no SAG members with seven fingers on each hand.

From what I understand, it's not 4/1 but 5. Five fingers five toes five protuberances (2 legs 2arms/wings etc. 1 head). It has to do with the way the cells split up. Like limbs on a tree only in fives.

[Really Not All That Bright]

From what I understand, it's not 4/1 but 5. Five fingers five toes five protuberances (2 legs 2arms/wings etc. 1 head). It has to do with the way the cells split up. Like limbs on a tree only in fives.
I'm referring specically to the "4 fingers, 1 opposable digit" seen in nearly all the Star Trek species, though.

[EdwardMartinIII]

I'm referring specically to the "4 fingers, 1 opposable digit" seen in nearly all the Star Trek species, though.

(Star Trek-flavored hijack)
Oh dear, sorry to be geekish on this. There was a Next Generation episode that addressed this, suggesting that all these folks were basically "seeded" throughout the galaxy. There was an episode of the original series that touched on this subject as well, in a similar fashion. The more practical explanation is that unless it's a "special" alien, it's cheaper to make aliens that look like people.

On the subject of Tuvok, I was surprised to see a black Vulcan until someone pointed out that in story-land, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be plenty of variation in the looks of Vulcans. After all, humans vary a lot in appearance, and most every species has variations in appearance, some subtle (such as herring) and some not-so-subtle (such as dogs). They ALSO pointed out that previously we've only seen uptight white guys playing Vulcans, and that was an explanation that made sense, too.
(end Star Trek-flavored hijack)

The "common knowledge belief" that gets me often is the idea that "well, SOMEONE'S gotta win the lottery," which was touched on earlier, and the idea that odds are somehow really flexible. I can't recall how many times I've introduced people to the Monty Hall Problem to demonstrate how odds really work.

[Really Not All That Bright]

(Star Trek-flavored hijack)
Oh dear, sorry to be geekish on this. There was a Next Generation episode that addressed this, suggesting that all these folks were basically "seeded" throughout the galaxy. There was an episode of the original series that touched on this subject as well, in a similar fashion. The more practical explanation is that unless it's a "special" alien, it's cheaper to make aliens that look like people.
I thought about that, but IIRC in said episode (The Chase) it was only Cardassia, Romulan homeworld (so Vulcan I guess), Kronos and Earth that were "seeded" that way.

[The Punkyova]

Referring to the dogmas of virgin birth and immaculate conception:

Well, they have to do with each other in the sense that Mary had to be immaculately conceived in order to be a suitable vessel to bear Jesus (as 1920s Style "Death Ray" said).

But they are, indeed, two different dogmas that are frequently confused by the name "immaculate conception" being used incorrectly for the Incarnation of Jesus.

Not in Protestant theology. Protestants go the other way, and argue that Mary's sinful state (i.e., that she too suffered from original sin, not anything to do with her pregnancy) is key to Jesus being fully human. We can go into excruciating detail here, but the two dogmas have no necessary connection.

That said, I totally agree with your last paragraph.

[matt_mcl]

Not in Protestant theology. Protestants go the other way, and argue that Mary's sinful state (i.e., that she too suffered from original sin, not anything to do with her pregnancy) is key to Jesus being fully human. We can go into excruciating detail here, but the two dogmas have no necessary connection.

Well, we were discussing the Immaculate Conception in the first place, which is a Catholic and not Protestant doctrine.

[ianzin]

The plural of anecdote is not data. This is true, but it does not equate to saying that first-hand personal experience either can always be disregarded or should be. The "...is not data" riposte is a useful correction in circumstances where the value of such tools as large-scale trials, controls and statistical analysis is being overlooked or disregarded. It is also a useful reminder when people are seemingly unaware of the great capacity we all have for flawed perception, flawed reasoning and other types of self-delusion.

CrazyJoe can speak for himself, but I don't think what he was saying in any sense warranted the '...is not data' response. He was pointing out a different kind of nonsense - the type where 'official' reports are seriously at odds with widespread, common experience (common to many people over many generations) in matters that seemed non-controversial before the 'official' report appeared. In such cases, calling attention to the discrepancy might alert us to flaws in the way the 'official report' either gathered its data or used it, or to the incompetence of the people involved in creating the report.

Sometimes, the wise person says, 'The plural of anecdote is not data'. At other times, he or she says, 'According to official reports, the Titanic can't sink".

[Shirley Ujest]

They got involved in Land Wars in Asia? :D

I'll get my coat...



You win!




BOT:

It is Kmart not Kmarts.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Isn't it K-Mart?

[KneadToKnow]

Isn't it K-Mart?

Not any more, apparently:

Kmart, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD), is a mass merchandising company that offers customers quality products through a portfolio of exclusive brands and labels.

As of January 28, 2006, Kmart operated a total of 1,416 Kmart stores across 49 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This store count included 1,361 discount stores, averaging 92,000 square feet, and 55 Super Centers, averaging 165,000 square feet.

Most Kmart stores are one-floor, free-standing units that carry a wide assortment of general merchandise, including products sold under such well-known labels as Jaclyn Smith, Joe Boxer, and Martha Stewart Everyday.

(bolding mine, except the first one)

Cite (http://www.searsholdings.com/about/kmart/)

[cmosdes]

We have done this one before. A car battery is capable of delivering hundreds upon hundreds of amps all at one in an instant. Yet you can grab the positive pole in one hand and the negative pole in your other hand. Not only will you not die, you won't feel a thing. As the current would have to flow directly across your chest to get from one hand to the other, if what you are saying is correct, you would expect ... something. In reality, nothing happens. This is due to the resistance of your body (skin mainly I believe) being high enough that the voltage drop across the resistance renders a zero or near zero current flow.

I fully understand ohm's law (J = sigma * E) and all that, so I realize that voltage and current are related by resistance. I also know a car battery won't kill you because of the body's internal resistance. But at the same time, a 2000v shock won't kill you either (think ESD).

Whenever I look for "lethal voltage" on the net, it is back calculated from knowing a current of around 100mA is lethal. Looking for lethal current returns lots of hits without reference to a lethal voltage.

I don't really know the specifics on why voltage/current will kill you, but my supposition is that it is moving charges that do it. Moving charges are current.

Let me stress again that I fully comprehend that voltage and current are interrelated.

You can have high current with low resistance, by the way, since the body is not only resistive but capacitive as well. The voltage across a capacitor can't change instantaneously but the current can.

[EdwardMartinIII]

I thought about that, but IIRC in said episode (The Chase) it was only Cardassia, Romulan homeworld (so Vulcan I guess), Kronos and Earth that were "seeded" that way.

Could be -- I only watched it the one time it was broadcast. Haven't made my way to it again since starting at the beginning.

My vague Pop-Tart-infested recollection is that they willy-nilly spread their seed around like intergalactic drunken teenagers.

I'll go with "cheap" as an explanation, though. :D

[Sampiro]

I read an ultra right wing screed on the Oscars mentioning The Reader as the story of a Nazi pedophile and the 15 year old boy she seduces (gee, bet that was difficult for an attractive woman to do). This is another one that pops up all the time that irks me:

-PEDOPHILE: an adult who is sexually aroused by prepubescant children.

A 15 year old boy capable of an affair is not a prepubescant child. Therefore she is not a pedophile, she is an

-EPHEBOPHILE: an adult who is sexually aroused by pubescant/adolescent children.

This is actually an important distinction. I've even read it used to distinguish the acts of closeted gays like Mark Foley: "Now the fact he came on to 15 year old boys means he's a pedophile, not gay. We're not saying gays are pedophiles."

Well, while it's true gays aren't automatically pedophiles or ephebophiles, there IS a major distinction about orientation and the attraction to the young.
A pedophile's sexual orientation with adults has little or nothing to do with what gender of children he or she is attracted to; a man can be married to a woman and not aroused at all by men his own age or even young men, he may even be genuinely aroused by women, but his pathological sex drive is aroused by prepubescant boys. There's little or no connection twixt what adults arouse him and what children arouse him.

OTOH, a male ephebophile who is aroused by 14 year boys who are in or have gone through puberty is more than likely homosexual. A male ephebophile who is aroused by 14 year girls who are in or have gone through puberty is more than likely heterosexual. The same is true of the orientations of women sexually aroused by dolescents- hetero women ephebophiles are aroused by pubescant boys and lesbian ephebophiles by adolescant girls. It's still a pathology, but it's very different from pedophilia, and there's also a lot of grey area (some 15 year olds are a lot more sexually mature than others).

Anyway, way too much info but I'm always surprised at how often this error comes up since it's actually significant due to 1) the orientation differential 2) the difference between a legal minor and a child.

[mr. jp]

For all intensive purposes, Small Pox utterly decimated the Mayan peoples.

So you are saying that
1. People often say this
2. It is wrong

?

What did decimate the Mayan peoples then?

[Skald the Rhymer]

Sampiro, you are neglecting to account for the idiocy 34% of the American public.

[Captain Carrot]

So you are saying that
1. People often say this
2. It is wrong

?

What did decimate the Mayan peoples then?

A. It's 'for all intents and purposes'.
B. Smallpox did a lot more than killing one in ten of the Maya.

[Ludovic]

Even better yet:

For all intensive purposes, small pox literally decimated the Mayan people's.

[Really Not All That Bright]

What did decimate the Mayan peoples then?
I think the point is that the Maya were a people, not peoples.

[Crafter_Man]

a 2000v shock won't kill you either (think ESD).
You would get seriously zapped if you touched both output terminals on a regulated, constant-voltage power supply that is adjusted to source 2000 V. (This assumes it can source over 10 mA or so.) But 2000 V of "static" potential is different matter.

Static voltage is not modeled as a power supply that maintains a constant voltage... it is modeled as a capacitor charged to a high DC voltage. The model may also include a parallel resistor (to allow for self-discharge) and/or a series resistor (to limit current initially and throughout the discharge event).

Let's assume for a second that the model is simply a capacitor charged to 2000 V. When you touch across the capacitor terminals, your body will indeed be subjected to 2000 V, at least initially. But because your body has a fairly low resistance, and because the capacitance value is usually very small, the total stored energy is very very small and the RC time constant is very very short. The voltage decreases at such a fast rate that you're left unharmed. Series resistance - which is usually present - may increase the time constant, but it will also reduce the initial voltage via the voltage divider that's created.

In reality, it is often the other way around... your body is a capacitor in series with a resistor (commonly modeled as 100 pF in series with 1.5 kilohms), and the capacitor in your body is charged to a high voltage. More info here (http://www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0214_ee/index.html) and here (http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~schubert/Course-Teaching-modules/A41-Human-body-model-and-electrostatic-discharge-ESD.pdf).

[Geek Mecha]

The name of the popular brand of adult diapers is DEPEND. (http://www.depend.com/) Singular. As in being able to "depend" on it. Calling them Depends adult diapers is just as wrong as saying Bics pens, Krafts mac and cheese dinners, or Sonys Walkmans.

[cmosdes]

More info here (http://www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0214_ee/index.html) and here (http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~schubert/Course-Teaching-modules/A41-Human-body-model-and-electrostatic-discharge-ESD.pdf).From your first cite:

If I touch 250V electricity mains it can kill me - how is it I can be at 4,000V and not feel a thing?

The old electricians’ saying is – “it’s volts that jolts, and mils (milliamps) that kills”.

As an analogy, a layer of snow can be at the top of a mountain – and just sits there looking peaceful. But if you move it and it runs down the slope as an avalanche, when it hits a town in the valley at high speed it will do a lot of damage.

Static electricity charge is like the snow on the mountain. Gathered together in one place it can have a lot of potential energy (voltage).

But it’s not until it moves that damage starts to happen. In an electrostatic discharge from a high voltage all the accumulated charge flows quickly away (like all that snow dropping from a great height). For a few tens of nanoseconds the discharge current can be tens of Amperes, and power dissipation in the kW region! But the total energy is small – microjoules to a few millijoules.

A large object like a human just gets surface damage (skin punctured in a shock) but a micron sized transistor junction can be melted in an instant.

In your own post you indicate that in order for a power supply to be lethal it must be able to source 10mA. Again, it is very difficult to find a reference to a lethal voltage that doesn't reference the current. This isn't simply because voltage and current are related by ohm's law. It is because a high potential is meaningless unless there is actual current flow.

As I said above and as your first cite points out, you aren't hurt until you start moving charge around. That is the very definition of current.