Most people are careless and don’t know what they’re doing. Your extensive experience in the kitchen is extremely atypical.
I think that was Groucho, not Samuel.
Yes, it was definitely Groucho Twain.
That was the part of the factoid that’s not true!
Two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with watermelon.
Late in life, the rhino sheds its horn and becomes a hippo.
Paradoxically enough, an ounce of gold does not weigh the same as an ounce of feathers.
(Really. There are two types of ounces that measure weight, one of which is only used for precious metals.)
I liked the one going around last October that…
Man. That’s what I was going to say.
OK, how about more people commit suicide at Christmas than any other time of the year.
(Hijack) Here’s what I don’t get about this one. If one thing of water is 70 degrees and the other is 40, before the 70-degree water hits 32 degrees, doesn’t it have to hit 40 first? And by the time it’s at 40, won’t the water that started at 40 be colder than 40?
I never understood how that was supposed to work.
Google Mpemba Effect.
Dunno. That one just sounds plausible.
Snopes says it ain’t so.
I didn’t realize this was a widespread thing. My mom mentioned hearing it on Polish radio and I immediately thought, wait, that’s can’t be right. Any 31-day month where the first falls on a Friday should fulfill this.. Sure enough, that year’s calendar had proof this statement was false: January 2010.
2/3s of a watermelon is 98% the human body. :eek:
And there are twelve ounces in a pound of troy weight (gold) and sixteen in avoirdupois (feathers).
I think the OP was asking for common ones that are trotted out, I hadn’t heard of most of these “common” factoids in this thread.
But I have heard of this one, and I’m sure y’all will agree it’s common:
Mythbusters busted the hell out of that one.
The Odyssey was not in fact written by Homer, but by another Greek of the same name.
(From Robert A. Heinlein)
You all are missing the point entirely. The OP isn’t asking for widespread facts that are wrong, nor does he want facts that sound like they might be true. He wants facts that sound right but then once you actually digest what was said, they’re obviously false. I shouldn’t have to run to a calendar or look up suicide statistics or freeze water to figure out that it’s false. I should just be able to say “Hey, wait a minute…I can’t see the Great Wall of China right now. Your statement is false.” or “Wait, it might be 5:00 somewhere (give or take) but it’s not Monday somewhere.”
How about “I was born in June and my brother was born ten months later. I hated May growing up because we’d both be, like, 12 but April comes before June. So every year, he was older than me for a month.”
But January isn’t October, so it doesn’t count.
OK, how about October 1982, 1993, 1999 and 2021?