One of WEB Griffith’s novels has a man asked (in the early 1960’s) if he will be using Visa or Mastercard, both of which had different names at that time.
WAG: I think he caught a lot of flak for screwing that up, and attempted to justify it. Unless he’s said otherwise.
Although I like the books in general, Sue Grafton’s “Kinsey Milhone” books often have some goofy innaccuracies that any good editor should have caught.
In one of them (can’t remember which one specifically) she is in a motel room with some loudly amorous neighbors in the next room. To combat the noise, she takes one of her bras, stuffs a sock in each cup and ties it over her head, so a sock-filled cup covers each ear. Just a quick look at any normal bra would show you that this is just not possible. The cups are right next to each other and wouldn’t cover your ears like she suggests.
In another, she borrows a pair of pants from a friend, but the friend is much taller and the pants are too long and drag on the floor. Kinsey solves the problem by rolling the waistband up. That wouldn’t work, either. It would just hitch up the waist. The leg length would still be too long.
Both of these things jumped right out at me - as in, “That wouldn’t work!”
Considering that the books are written by a woman, she should know better.
Um, biblio, I am not a chick but that bra thing makes sense to me. What about those bras that are hooked at the cup instead of at the back? So you have, looking at it in a line, latch - cup - strap - cup - compliment latch. No?
Applegate can’t even keep her made-up facts straight in those books. I understand there was a bit of a controversy over a human character being able to thought-speak with a transformed friend in the first book, but for a few years after every book said that someone in human form can’t thought-speak. Apparently she forgot :rolleyes: This was later ammended to the alien being able to use thought-speak in human-form, but not the rest, which still doesn’t correct the inaccuracy.
(Yes, I read them when I was younger. I still have my almost-complete collection of the series at home)
Not a novel, but I was watching Gormenghast (spelling?) with some friends a while back, and the wet-nurse for the prince was a lady who was pregnant, not someone who had just given birth. One of my friends told me I needed to ‘suspend disbelief’–after all, if you don’t the show isn’t enjoyable anyways. But this one thing bothered me the entire time.
If you fill Piggy’s glass lens with water, it will start fires.
One that comes to mind…In Stephen King’s Misery, there a mention Annie(the woman kathy bates played) grabbing a gun.
What bugged me is that the gun is mentioned 4 times, two of those times it’s referred to as a shotgun and two times as a rifle. I wondered “So King, which is it?” Not that it mattered much, but I just wondered why King or his editor couldn’t keep it straight. I guess it bugs me because the two tend to be more or less mutually exclusive.
I don’t recall… Is it ever explicitly stated that Piggy is nearsighted? If he’s farsighted, then his glasses could indeed start a fire. That is, if they were strong enough.
In Larry Niven’s Ringworld, the protagonist is stretching out his birthday party by travelling around the world… But in the first edition, he was going the wrong way. Later editions corrected this, but even still, he continually lists (and uses in calculations) a value of g = 9.98 meters per second squared. The true value is more like 9.8. Not really critical to the plot, but a bit jarring to a physicist.
Prolactin levels rise throughout pregnancy, and while a pregnant woman’s elevated estrogen levels usually counteract the prolactin until after delivery I think it’s possible for a pregnant woman to lactate.
Oh, and Gormenghast is a novel, but I don’t know if there’s a pregant nurse in the book or if it’s just in the miniseries. 
Another King booboo: In the original Green Mile series, Percy Wetmore is in a straightjacket when the tape is taken off his mouth. He then proceeds to rub his hand across his mouth. King corrected it in the novel.
In the beginning of Jekyll & Hyde, Mr. Hyde knocks down a child at 3 a.m. on a cold February morning and a crowd of people gather. Why all those people are out at 3 a.m. on a cold February morning is not explained.
It’s not a novel, but ever since my dad (who flies a lot) pointed this out to me, it makes me smile.
When you get on a plane and they do the safety lecture at the start, the cabin crew (and the documentation) reassure you that there are lifejackets “in the event of a landing on water”. A landing on water?
On a different note, I was on a flight once where the cabin crew explained that the light and whistle on the lifejacket were just in case we landed at a disco.
It may not have needed explaining at the time. Reading about the Ripper murders recently, I was struck by how many people there seemed to be – not just on the street, but conducting business – at all hours of the night.
Didn’t people back then have diffrent sleeping patterns from today?
George Carlin actually covered this during his stand-up:
"‘In the unlikely event of a water landing…’
Well, what exactly IS a water landing? Is it just me, or does this sound somewhat similar to CRASHING INTO THE OCEAN?"
Yes, a landing on water. What’s the issue here? A jetliner with its gear up can land on water if it’s not too choppy and the pilots are real hotdogs.
It won’t be fun for anyone, and the plane will sink in short order, but that’s what the crew is always talking about, and what the lifejackets are for.
Just finished reading Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos. He is ususally very good with details, but in this one, he has the protagonist’s father buying a freshly slaughtered kosher chicken on a Saturday afternoon. Not in any kosher market I’d deal with.
I hate to think of the number of inaccuracies I have read regarding firearms, they always put me off.
Ignorance has been fought It did pull me out of the story at the time though, every time that woman was shown. Now I really want to go back and finish watching it.
Specifically, “Bank Americard” and “Master Charge.” But, wait – early 1960s? I thought consumer credit cards didn’t become legal until 1967.
Well it is Victorian London. There was a lot of stuff going on in the streets at the time, not to mention that there were a lot of people who didn’t have any place to go other than the streets, even at 3 a.m.
Edgar Rice Burroughs had tigers roaming around in the jungles of Africa in his serialized version of Tarzan of the Apes. (The error was corrected before the novel was published as a book.) Not being 110 years old, I didn’t catch this error at the time, and it didn’t take me out of the story. Just thought it would make an interesting addition to the list of egregious errors in novels.