From alternate-history fiction, I’ve learned a lot about real history. For instance, from L. Sprague de Camp’s Wheel if If, I first learned about the Synod of Whitby, which was the beginning of the end for the independent Celtic Christian Church.
I’ve learned from Starship Troopers that a Marine captain aboard a Navy ship will sometimes be referred to informally as “Major” so as to prevent confusion between him and the Captain of the ship. I’ve actually heard somewhat conflicting information on if this ever happens in real life, but I think I also read about it in a Horatio Hornblower novel, and C. S. Forester seemed pretty solid on historical details.
I learned from reading Horatio Hornblower that the two most important things to the operation of a ship are drinking water and rum, after which food, fuel, and ammunition were father down the list somewhat, and that you can use the anchors of a ship to turn the whole ship at will in shallow waters with some prep time (this being called a “Kedge Anchor”)
I learned actually from the Hornblower movies based on the Horatio Hornblower books that even a small leak can destroy a ship, depending on the cargo (in the case of this story, “The Cargo of Rice”, this was due to the water making the rice in the ship’s hold expand, popping the seams and letting more water in until the ship finally sank.
Well, to be fair, Pendleton is really just a stone’s throw from Indy.
I learned the meaning of the word onomatopoeia from Christine, by Stephen King. I was only in 5th grade so I didn’t get to show off that knowledge until the word popped up in a lit. class a few years later. Very cool word indeed.
The difference between flotsam and jetsam…
Was it Dorothy Sayers’s “Have His Carcase”? That’s where I picked it up. (According to Lord Peter Wimsey, flotsam is floating on the water and jetsam has been cast up on the shore.)
Also from another mystery novel, Colin Dexter’s “The Wench is Dead,” I learned that I am 1/4 of an inch taller than Jack the Ripper’s victim “Long Liz” Stride–and by Victorian standards, would therefore be a great big woman rather than a modern petite one.
From Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, I learned something obvious-if-you-think-about-it: A coma patient who wakes will not immediately be able to walk, because lying motionless for years leaves the muscles atrophied.
Which knowledge turned an episode of House into a wallbanger for me: A character played by John Laroquette, who has been in a vegetative state for ten years, is aroused by drugs, to which his body will soon adapt so he’ll only be conscious a day or two, so he demands to be taken to Atlantic City to party. Consistent with his character – but he’s up and moving under his own power. And House seems to make such a point of being medically accurate.
Kill Bill does not make a point of being true-to-life in any respect, but at least it got that detail right.
I was reading a book about celebrities’s children, published in the 1980’s and found out that Jayne Mansfield had a daughter named Mariska Magdolina Hargitay. I’ve been watching Law & Order SVU for years and never knew that the actress playing Olivia Benson was her daughter.