OK Columbus didn’t prove the world was round, George Washington never chopped the cherry tree down, Everett Dirksen never said ‘‘A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money.’’, Galileo never dropped the balls off the tower of Pisa, etc. What other great stories never happened? I started to post this in GQ, but decided people might questions some of them. We can argue all day here.
The word “bug” is not used to describe computer problems because Grace Hopper’s team found a moth in their computer in the 1940s - the term ‘bug’ had been used for decades to describe difficult-to-find problems in electrical or mechanical systems: that’s why Hopper and her associates thought it was notable that their problem was caused by a real bug
Cites: http://features.techworld.com/applications/3301346/moth-in-the-machine-debugging-the-origins-of-bug/
http://oed.com/view/Entry/24352#eid12526200 (see meaning 3.b)
Actually, challenges are permitted in GQ and there is no actual “debate” associated with this question.
I’m sending this thread to GQ and the Mods there can pass it to MPSIMS or IMHO if it turns in those directions.
Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet.
Jimmy Stewart was the man who shot Liberty Valance.
11/15/2002, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
“Five days or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last longer.”
Eliot Ness wasn’t the guy who brought Al Capone to justice.
[Moderator Note]
That’s not in the same category as what the OP is talking about. Let’s keep political jabs out of this.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The Geere (or whoever) anal hamster story.
There are two categories of good stories that aren’t true. First, do you mean stories that people tell that they know aren’t true? That’s called fiction. Go to your nearest library and ask the librarian to show you the fiction section. Or do you mean stories that people tell thinking that they are true even though they aren’t? Those are called urban legends. You can find an immense number of the here:
The Mecklenberg Declaration of Independence.
Abe Lincoln writing the Gettysburg Address on the back of the envelope.
The apple that landed on Sir Isaac Newton’s head.
Any etymological story that says a word coined before World War II was really an acronym for something (e.g., posh, tip, wog, etc.)
Lindbergh wasn’t the first to cross the Atlantic.
Sherlock Holmes (in the novels) never said “Elementary, dear Watson”.
Albert Einstein did not fail in math class.
“Fornicate under the consent of the king”
Well, almost any etymology, at least. Nabisco and OK both date before then. But yeah, the vast majority of such stories are false.
it would be good to provide a statement why the stories aren’t true and maybe a cite.
if these are widespread incorrect notions then much of the searching results will lead to the incorrect notion.
Julia Child never dropped a turkey onto the floor on her TV show.
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
Which is why people don’t claim he was and argue whether it was Columbus or Erikson. Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo non-stop from N. America to Europe.
It’s the “solo” part people don’t know about.