It’s entertaining, certainly, but is it correct? How often, would you say? There are times when I’ve read one of their random facts at the bottom of a page and said “WTF? What’s their sorce on this? This can’t be correct.” But even when I’m not questioning, and I just accept their answers as the truth, am I fighting ignorance or perpetuating it?
WTF is a bathroom reader?! Are you in the United States of America?
I think they’re referring to a series of books called “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader”, a compendium of short articles and useless facts.
One useless fact about the books themselves: The covers use a heavier laminate than most softcover books, given the damp conditions they’re subject to.
Sysop, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader is a collection of all sorts of stuff for you to read while on the pot/loo/john/whatever. It’s consider one of the classics among bathroom reading materials.
Ender, I’ve never actually read Uncle John’s, so I couldn’t tell you how accurate it is. I guess the point is that you are unlikely to get up to any cross referencing at that point.
No book is likely to be 100% accurate (not even Cecil’s, what with Ed sticking his finger in), so the question becomes “how accurate is accurate enough?” I suggest that in order to keep this within the realm of General Questions, you provide some specific information found in UJBR that you think might be inaccurate. Then we can track them down on a case-by-case basis so that people can reach their own conclusions about its accuracy.
bibliophage,
moderator, GQ
I’ve read nearly all of the bathroom readers, and I can say quite definitively that they consistently report well-debunked urban legends as fact, repeat endlessly things known to be untrue, and should not be regarded as a source of reliable information.
Qadgop I remember reading one of those ULs in the bathroom reader and thinking “Why is this in here? We know it’s false.” Then, at the very end is some fine print disclaimer that says (more or less) “oh by the way, this is an Urban Legend. But it’s still kind of funny.” Sigh…
bibliophage, I was just sort of wondering at overall accuracy. Lemmie pull out my bathroom reader calendar (as if you needed to look up the date in the bathroom)…ok…for today:
Emergency Rooms treat twice as many left handed people for accidents as right handed people.
I hate to go into the “future” but since I’ve thrown away everything up to August 25 but…
Chemically speaking, your blood is very close to sea water
Americans fill in 54 acres of crossword puzzle space every day. (how big is each crossword puzzle? USA today has pretty large squares? How do they determine how many people do a crossword?)
A government study of US eating habits turned up a man who drank 64 cups of coffee a day
At this moment, the earth is travelling through space at 660,000 MPH (In relation to what? Around the sun? What about how the sun travels?)
The most common street name in America is Park Street (I think I’ve also heard it is 2nd street (possibly by the Bathroom Reader itself!)).
And let’s not forget these (my favorites)…
If an aircraft carrier ran on gasoline, it’d get about six inches to the gallon.
Your hair grows at a rate of .00000001 miles per hour.
Hi Mom!
