# Little facts people get wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 15, 2016, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575 "2016-10-15T02:48:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/41 "2016-10-16T00:31:37Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Rectangle taillight e10s are as cool as round taillight e10s. Sorry, no. 😉 I owned 2 roundies from new. A '69 2002 and a -70 2002A. But nobody called them by the series back then that I can remember. And I had a 09 series also, a '67 2000CS. I had to look that one up. My E34 535i was my favorite car. Dennis ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/42 "2016-10-16T00:34:50Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > That’s because your “rule” is a modern fiction; professional writers know better. I was taught that rule in high school in the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/43 "2016-10-16T00:39:16Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Saying DEFCON-5 when they mean DEFCON-1. But they should have named it the other way around. DEFCON-1 is upper limited, there isn’t anything beyond it. "Holy crap! The 5th fleet has been blown out of the water, DC is just a smoking hole in the ground, the Rockies have been flattened and I can see 300 incoming nukes on my screen! And you give me DEFCON-1? I want DEFCON freakin’ 100!!! " Dennis ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/44 "2016-10-16T01:15:55Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > That’s because your “rule” is a modern fiction; professional writers know better. Professional writers who follow the Chicago Manual of Style or the AP Stylebook? > [@AP Stylebook](#): > > Use ensure to mean guarantee: Steps were taken to ensure accuracy. > > Use insure for references to insurance: The policy insures his life. Nevertheless, I am pleased to see that this rule (no scare quotes needed) is not so rigid that I need to get annoyed seeing “insure” for “ensure” anymore. As I am one who is firmly in the “they as gender-neutral you” camp, I am not one to be so critical of usage. I’ll let the “insure” folks do their thing. You have removed a burden I have been carrying for decades! ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/45 "2016-10-16T01:37:00Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > “Seagull” is a misnomer. There are about 60 species of Gulls in the world, none are named “Seagull”. Although most gulls have an association with the seashore, they are found in nearly all inland locations, including 12 species that occur in Mongolia. They will not fly out of sight of land, and most small remote islands have not been populated by gulls. Why do people get a bug up their ass about seagulls but not say, songbird or hawk or eagle? There isn’t a bird named any of those either, yet people don’t go around saying “actually, it a yellow-throated warbler. there’s no such thing as _a songbird_.” I save my irritation for people who think rabbits and ferrets are rodents. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/46 "2016-10-16T01:43:39Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Sometimes I feel like I’m constantly hearing little mistakes that are very common but if I correct people I feel like a jerk. Like if someone uses less instead of fewer, … Less or fewer what? You need quotes around “less” and “fewer” to indicate that you’re referencing the words themselves rather than using them as adjectives. Consider yourself corrected. Now I feel like a jerk. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/47 "2016-10-16T01:43:49Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Why do people get a bug up their ass about seagulls but not say, songbird or hawk or eagle? There isn’t a bird named any of those either, yet people don’t go around saying “actually, it a yellow-throated warbler. there’s no such thing as _a songbird_.” > > I save my irritation for people who think rabbits and ferrets are rodents. The difference is that gulls are found in, say, Kansas. So every time you say “seagull” for “gull,” you’re reinforcing (for some within your earshot) the mistaken notion (held by many) that gulls are only found near the sea. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/48 "2016-10-16T04:11:25Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Why do people get a bug up their ass about seagulls but not say, songbird or hawk or eagle? There isn’t a bird named any of those either, yet people don’t go around saying “actually, it a yellow-throated warbler. there’s no such thing as _a songbird_.” > > I save my irritation for people who think rabbits and ferrets are rodents. There is no species of bird that, in modern English vernacular, has a common name containing the word “seagull”. There are plenty containing the word warbler, hawk and eagle. Songbirds are an informal sub-category of birds, but seagulls are not a category of gulls, since people who use the term seagulls use it for all gulls… ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/49 "2016-10-16T04:44:25Z")
Tow the line. It’s toe the line. Get it right, dammit. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/50 "2016-10-16T05:58:10Z")
Commonly misspelled names of famous people. It’s Gandhi, not Ghandi! It’s Buddha, not Buddah! It’s Cal Ripken, Jr., not Ripkin! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/51 "2016-10-16T06:00:16Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > Tow the line. It’s toe the line. Get it right, dammit. Tell it to Captain Queeg! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/52 "2016-10-16T06:40:18Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Also, is this the place for me to rant about the misuse of “Begging the question” some more? That is seriously going to result in homicide, or at least a foot through my TV someday. I’ll rant along with you!!! :mad: And “laying” instead of “lying”, “loathe” instead of “loath”. Grrr! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/53 "2016-10-16T09:14:00Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > The difference is that gulls are found in, say, Kansas. So every time you say “seagull” for “gull,” you’re reinforcing (for some within your earshot) the mistaken notion (held by many) that gulls are only found near the sea. ‘Seagull’ is an English word that came into use before English-speaking people ever arrived in Kansas. The word would have been coined by people whose encounters with gulls would typically have been in coastal contexts, n England. If you don’t like the word, stop using it, but it actually works fine here. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/54 "2016-10-16T12:42:29Z")
People get into fits over “seagull”??? Wow. So there isn’t one species. So people generally apply it to multiple species. Who cares? It is a very useful term. Very, very few people know all the exact species by heart. People call tomatoes a vegetable all the time. They’re wrong, but somehow almost all of use live with it without going apoplectic. And yet you anti-“seagull” people are fine with the red-breasted American bird being called a “robin”. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/55 "2016-10-16T13:07:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > While we’re talking about “accuracy”: “Accuracy” and “precision” are two different things, and neither is quite the same as “correctness”. If you’re measuring the length of a piece of string using a meterstick that only has markings every ten centimeters, then that’s imprecise. If you’re measuring it using a meterstick that has the end cut off it, then that’s inaccurate. If you’re measuring it using a thermometer, that’s incorrect. Well on that note… 😉 Metrologists never use the term “accuracy” (e.g. “this instrument is 99.99% accurate”) when talking about measurement data. They use the term “uncertainty” (e.g. “this instrument has an uncertainty of 0.01% of reading”). So as a former metrologist, it drives me a bit batty when I hear a coworker say, “This instrument is very accurate.” Instead they should say, “This instrument has very low uncertainty.” ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/56 "2016-10-16T13:35:02Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#): > > saying buffalo when it is a bison I don’t see a problem with calling _Bison_ “buffalo,” which is a paraphyletic term anyway. Bison are at least as closely related to _Bubalus_ water buffalo, as _Bubalus_ are to _Syncerus_ Cape buffalo, for example. > [@Trinopus](#): > > There was an absolutely charming example of this in an old Green Arrow comic book. GA is in South Africa, out on the veldt, looking at the Cape Buffalo…and the artist drew American Bison. Obviously this would be wrong regardless. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/57 "2016-10-16T13:39:34Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > People get into fits over “seagull”??? > > Wow. > > So there isn’t one species. So people generally apply it to multiple species. Who cares? It is a very useful term. Very, very few people know all the exact species by heart. > > People call tomatoes a vegetable all the time. They’re wrong, but somehow almost all of use live with it without going apoplectic. > > And yet you anti-“seagull” people are fine with the red-breasted American bird being called a “robin”. It’s weird. I don’t recall ever seeing any ornithologist ever get bent up about the name ‘Herring Gull’, even though their diet is very varied. BTW, tomatoes are both a fruit, and vegetable (in fact most fruits are vegetables, except the fruiting bodies of fungi, which are not members of the vegetable kingdom. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/58 "2016-10-16T13:52:02Z")
People who ask “can you borrow me 5 bucks” rather than asking if I’ll loan them 5 bucks. (either way the answer is no! 😉 ) Saying “I could care less” when you mean “I could **n’t** care less”. “Is the glass half empty or is it half full?” Neither, it’s both. The hidden fact in that false dilemma is the glass is irrelevant as it’s too damn big. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/59 "2016-10-16T14:10:06Z")
“We only use 10% of our brain.”\* Well, perhaps this election is working to prove this? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575/60 "2016-10-16T16:02:09Z")
And there’s no second “n” in “pundit”; no such word as “pundint”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-facts-people-get-wrong/768575.md?page=4)