# Good stories that aren't true **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418 "2012-02-20T14:18:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/101 "2012-02-24T00:29:39Z")
> [@Vicullum](#): > > \ > > “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we’re negotiating on a price.” > > I’ve heard this story a few times, with the famous person being either Winston Churchill or George Bernard Shaw. Which means the whole thing is probably made up. Very well-known anecdote, widely re-told in many similar variations. Most often attributed (in the tellings I’ve read) to Groucho Marx. Meaning, of course, that Groucho Marx probably did in fact tell this joke as part of his repertoire. (No implication, of course, as to whether it was _original_ with him, or whether he (or anyone) ever had this conversation In Real Life.) ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/102 "2012-02-24T05:16:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So, “didn’t do quite as much good as some people think” now ranks near the top as false stories go? I think you need to flesh that out a bit more if you’re going to be taken seriously. Probably in Great Debates. I thought it was common knowledge now that she wasn’t the Angel of Mercy as she’d been portrayed through her adult life. Instead of breaking the rules by copying and pasting the whole [Criticism section](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa) of the Wikipedia entry on her, here’s a list of the salient points: - charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse - multiple examples of criticism from the medical press on the quality of care for the terminally ill - “On principle, strong painkillers are even in hard cases not given. According to Mother Teresa’s philosophy, it is ‘the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ’”. - she “infantilized” her nuns by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasized obedience over independent thinking [a lesson probably instilled by the Jesuits, and dutifully carried out by her] - allegations about financial matters and the spending of donations, including sizable sums from Baby Doc Duvalier and noted embezzlers [This article](http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=puppet) describes how the dying were duped into converting to Christianity, against Indian law. In Mother Teresa’s defence, she was probably just a simple-minded, malleable puppet controlled by the Jesuits who crafted her legend to use as a cash cow. For the last fifty years of her life, they had to continually salve her grave doubts about God’s existence so that she continued to use God as the excuse for her “work”. Does that count as a good story that turned out to be false?😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/103 "2012-02-24T05:48:49Z")
Thank you Esox, for posting what I was about to post. Also, there’s the part where she let everyone suffer in her hospitals (that whole ‘suffering’ thing) while she flew first class everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/104 "2012-02-24T14:15:44Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Very well-known anecdote, widely re-told in many similar variations. > Most often attributed (in the tellings I’ve read) to Groucho Marx. > > Meaning, of course, that Groucho Marx probably did in fact tell this joke as part of his repertoire. (No implication, of course, as to whether it was _original_ with him, or whether he (or anyone) ever had this conversation In Real Life.) I am not sure it would have been acceptable on his 50’s TV show. He may have used it elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/105 "2012-02-24T14:50:52Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > Thank you Esox, for posting what I was about to post. > > Also, there’s the part where she let everyone suffer in her hospitals (that whole ‘suffering’ thing) while she flew first class everywhere. You’re welcome, Sister Vigilante, and sorry for stealing your thunder. It would have carried more weight under your username.;)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/106 "2012-02-24T15:02:52Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > It’s the “solo” part people don’t know about. This is re Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic. Robert Ripley, in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! column, stated that he wasn’t the first to cross and he got a lot of angry letters about it. (I’m not sure if he stated in smaller print that Lindbergh was the first to fly solo.) Fact: It used to be thought by many people that tomatoes weren’t safe to eat. Good story that’s not fact: A man named Robert Johnson ate a basket of them in public to prove they weren’t poisonous. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/107 "2012-02-24T16:17:52Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > This is re Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic. Robert Ripley, in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! column, stated that he wasn’t the first to cross and he got a lot of angry letters about it. (I’m not sure if he stated in smaller print that Lindbergh was the first to fly solo.) Lindbergh did more than _just_ fly solo, though. He was also the first person, solo or otherwise, to fly an airplane nonstop between New York and Paris in either direction. The Orteig Prize didn’t require solo flight, and other competitors flew tandem. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/108 "2012-02-24T19:22:59Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’m intrigued. What _did_ you expect? Well, certainly not the Spanish Inquisition. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/109 "2012-02-24T21:35:15Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Lindbergh did more than _just_ fly solo, though. He was also the first person, solo or otherwise, to fly an airplane nonstop between New York and Paris in either direction. The Orteig Prize didn’t require solo flight, and other competitors flew tandem. Alcock and Brown flew from Newfoundland to Ireland, a significantly shorter distance. Someone in a presentation about being first mentioned “who was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic?” Surprisingly, the point was that we all know the name of the first person, but not the second person. Surprisingly, very wrong… instantly recognizable if I can believe google. ---
**Author:** ![Dahu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahu/32/3416_2.png) [@Dahu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahu)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/110 "2012-02-25T11:41:03Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Alcock and Brown flew from Newfoundland to Ireland, a significantly shorter distance. > > Someone in a presentation about being first mentioned “who was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic?” Surprisingly, the point was that we all know the name of the first person, but not the second person. Surprisingly, very wrong… instantly recognizable if I can believe google. The first google result I get is a link to the wiki page for [Bert Hinkler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Hinkler). > [@](#): > > He was only the second person to cross the Atlantic solo, after Charles Lindbergh. However, there’s no cite (or even a date). Other google hits point to it being Amelia Earhart in 1932, but wiki doesn’t mention this flight as being the second. Curious. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/111 "2012-02-25T13:24:21Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Fact: It used to be thought by many people that tomatoes weren’t safe to eat. Good story that’s not fact: A man named Robert Johnson ate a basket of them in public to prove they weren’t poisonous. To be fair, they had good reason: Both tomatoes and potatoes are related to deadly nightshade (they’re all in the _Solanaceae_ family along with tobacco); in fact, tomato is _Solanum lycopersicum_ and potato is _Solanum tuberosum_, making them zombies and meaning that you shouldn’t eat too much of their leaves or stems. So, while those unknown-to-Europeans plants turned out to be mostly fine, they were and are fairly closely related to a known-to-Europeans plant that was mainly known for being toxic. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/112 "2012-02-25T14:26:25Z")
Here’s my good story, which might not be true. When I grew up, that stuff on every cheeseburger, was called Kraft Cheese. We all called it cheese without a second thought really. That’s the product this story involves. Now it seems there were these male university students. And you probably know how that goes, living like bears with furniture. At some point a piece of this product got left out on top of the fridge. And, of course, sat there for weeks, then months. One of the boys began to comment on how it did not mold, they joked about not getting phd’s for discovering insulin. But come to it, the boy grew more interested as time passed and the product transformed into a piece of oily plastic. By the time he was doing his graduate work and looking for a research topic, he decided on this very product, did the research and, effectively demonstrated that regardless of what we always called it, or how we thought of it, in fact it failed in the definition of cheese. In the end, they agreed. Someone took the research results and challenged Kraft, no small player, who challenged it mightily. In the end, though they began with live culture, by the end of processing, it was no longer live and was, so, technically, not really cheese. And Kraft was forced to rename their product ‘cheese food product’, acknowledging they started with cheese. In their advertising they mostly refer to it as ‘slices’ now. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2012, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/113 "2012-02-26T12:18:02Z")
> [@Jake](#): > > Nero didn’t “Fiddle” while Rome was burning. The violin hadn’t been invented yet. (He played a lute, if anything.) Liar! No, wait a minute…LYRE! ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418/114 "2012-02-26T13:57:57Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Here’s my good story, which might not be true. > > When I grew up, that stuff on every cheeseburger, was called Kraft Cheese. We all called it cheese without a second thought really. That’s the product this story involves. > > Someone took the research results and challenged Kraft, no small player, who challenged it mightily. In the end, though they began with live culture, by the end of processing, it was no longer live and was, so, technically, not really cheese. And Kraft was forced to rename their product ‘cheese food product’, acknowledging they started with cheese. In their advertising they mostly refer to it as ‘slices’ now. while that product (or similar) might have used to be blended cheeses with added ingredients, it is not now. now it has components from milk and other ingredients that don’t get cheesed. cheese does not need enzymes or mold to be cheese. cheese can be created only using chemicals, cultures have done that for a long time. if you use enzymes (extracted from a living thing) to make cheese the enzymes don’t make cheese a living thing. i don’t think some slovenly college students were involved in the naming distinction, more likely the cheese industry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-stories-that-arent-true/613418.md?page=5)