# Mistakes in classic literature
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 8, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227 "2004-05-08T21:43:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/121 "2006-02-16T11:57:01Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#):
>
> Personal insults are NOT permitted in Cafe Society.
Well, in fairness, has anyone _ever_ had a discussion about iambic pentameter that \*didn’t \* immediately degenerate into personal insults? This is exactly why there was so much gunplay in the American West: cheap whiskey, and Tuesday night open stage poetry recitals.
[But at least they weren’t insulting each other](http://ozyandmillie.org/2006/om20060214.html) [in iambic pentameter.](http://ozyandmillie.org/2006/om20060216.html)
---
### Author:  [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/122 "2006-02-16T16:34:12Z")
Sir Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most respected hard SF writers of the genre. Whether his books count as classic literature…YMMV. In one of his books, _Imperial Earth_ I think, the narrator comments about watching the sun rise on Mars in the **west**. When this was pointed out to him after the books publication in hardback, he wrote a sort of epilogue to the paperback where he not only doesn’t correct or apologize for his error but defends it as an appropriate literary device and then basically says "who cares anyway?’ It makes no discernible difference to the plot of the book. Why didn’t he just say “oops”, correct it and move on?
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### Author:  [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/123 "2006-02-16T16:46:31Z")
Sir Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most respected hard SF writers of the genre. Whether his books count as classic literature…YMMV. In one of his books, _Imperial Earth_ I think, the narrator comments about watching the sun rise on Mars in the **west**. When this was pointed out to him after the books publication in hardback, he wrote a sort of epilogue to the paperback where he not only doesn’t correct or apologize for his error but defends it as an appropriate literary device and then basically says "who cares anyway?’ It makes no discernible difference to the plot of the book. Why didn’t he just say “oops”, correct it and move on?
---
### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/124 "2006-02-16T17:01:04Z")
That reminds me of John Grisham’s latest novel, _The Broker_ (okay, I know it’s not classic literature!), in which the McGuffin of the story is a network of spy satellites. His discussion of the orbital and technical characteristics of the satellites was obviously and ludicrously wrong, even to someone, like me, who is no rocket scientist.
At the end he has a little disclaimer in which he admits he made up the details, and that they’re probably wrong, but says, “It’s just fiction, folks.”
It annoyed me that this prominent and successful author, working on a book that will probably earn him millions, couldn’t spend a couple of hours speaking to someone with a little technical expertise who could have helped him eliminate some jarringly bad details from his story. It was just sloppy.
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/125 "2006-02-16T19:54:53Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#):
>
> We clear on this?
Yezz, boss.
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### Author:  [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/126 "2006-02-16T23:36:03Z")
> [@DiggitCamara](#):
>
> or… they could turn [the eyeglasses] around…
> [@crowmanyclouds](#):
>
> You got a magnifying glass that doesn’t magnifying when ya flip it over?
Just to elaborate a bit…
Concave lenses — the type you’ll find in the eyeglasses of a near-sighted person, like Piggy — will not focus rays of sunlight, no matter how you orient them. Although the lenses do bulge “outward” in one direction, and so resemble the surface of a magnifying glass in that aspect, they cannot concentrate incoming parallel rays of light. Instead, they always spread them.
That bulge is there, in _all_ eyeglass lenses, to give your eyelashes room to move in. If the lenses were flat, your eyelashes would be constantly rubbing against the glass or plastic. Either that, or you’d have to wear your glasses far down your nose.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/127 "2006-02-16T23:53:54Z")
> [@Terrifel](#):
>
> Well, in fairness, has anyone _ever_ had a discussion about iambic pentameter that \*didn’t \* immediately degenerate into personal insults? This is exactly why there was so much gunplay in the American West: cheap whiskey, and Tuesday night open stage poetry recitals.
Good thing they weren’t talking about haiku or there’d be swordplay.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/128 "2006-02-16T23:59:45Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> Good thing they weren’t talking about haiku or there’d be swordplay.
Haiku can cause rage.
But the wise man tries to stay
away from limericks.
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### Author:  [@Taran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taran)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/129 "2006-02-17T01:20:31Z")
> [@betenoir](#):
>
> Oh for the the love of… :smack: . I Just realized not only did someone make this comment in this thread before…IT WAS MADE BY ME!
>
> Well give me a break, it was two years ago.
>
> And I still think it’s a relavent point, dammit.
Ten minutes later I’m still giggling at your pain. In my defense, it’s really funny pain.
And that bugged me in high school too. When I mentioned it, the teacher told me that Hamlet wasn’t certain that he really was talking to his father’s ghost. It could also have been Something Else; that uncertainty was why Hamlet spends half the play blundering around and getting everyone killed.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/130 "2006-02-17T03:35:09Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> Good thing they weren’t talking about haiku or there’d be swordplay.
You’re a Casey & Andy fan, right? : [http://www.galactanet.com/comic/366.htm](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/366.htm)
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/131 "2006-02-17T12:57:06Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#):
>
> Haiku can cause rage.
> But the wise man tries to stay
> away from limericks.
Too bad about the ferked-up metre there, **Cap**. 😃
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/132 "2006-02-17T13:43:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quote:
> Originally Posted by DiggitCamara
> or… they could turn [the eyeglasses] around…
>
> Quote:
> Originally Posted by crowmanyclouds
> You got a magnifying glass that doesn’t magnifying when ya flip it over?
>
> Just to elaborate a bit…
>
> Concave lenses — the type you’ll find in the eyeglasses of a near-sighted person, like Piggy — will not focus rays of sunlight, no matter how you orient them. Although the lenses do bulge “outward” in one direction, and so resemble the surface of a magnifying glass in that aspect, they cannot concentrate incoming parallel rays of light. Instead, they always spread them.
>
> That bulge is there, in all eyeglass lenses, to give your eyelashes room to move in. If the lenses were flat, your eyelashes would be constantly rubbing against the glass or plastic. Either that, or you’d have to wear your glasses far down your nose.
I gotta nitpick – I can’t help it, I’m in optics.
**Bytegeist** is mostly correct, but he’s describing _negative_ lenses , which _defocus_ light, not _concave_ lenses. As he correctly notes, even a lens that bulges out on one side can be a negative _defocusing_ lens. You have to have the other surface “bulge in” so much that the lens is thinner in the middle than at the edges (generally – don’t get me started on the Lensmaker’s formula ). But in that case the lens is concave on one side and convex on the other side (what is called a “meniscus” lens), so calling it “concave” is confusing. And misleading – a lens that has one side concave and the other convex can be a positive _focusing_ lens, if the center is thicker than the edges.
But this is just terminology – the point is that Piggy’s negative lenses for correcting myopia won’t focus light, just like mine won’t.
But there’s one advantage to that meniscus lens shape – if you fill the concave side with water, the resulting lens is positive, and _will_ focus light, so you can start a fire. Something to remember if you’re downed in a plane crash and wash up on a deserted island, but still retain your glasses. O even if you’re lost in the woods.
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### Author:  [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/133 "2006-02-17T15:06:12Z")
I took a poetry class in college where the professor showed us a sonnet by Robert Frost. Not a single line was perfect iambic pentameter, but the overall effect was induspitably a sonnet. We then read a perfectly iambic sonnet, and it was sing-songy and awful (don’t remember who wrote it).
His point was that poets do not become great by being perfect, but by being imperfect in the right places.
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### Author:  [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/134 "2006-02-17T15:25:52Z")
I see people have already mentioned Othello, but not the bit about it that most amused our class when we studied it in school. At the climax of the play, Othello suffocates Desdemona over her perceived infidelity. He does the deed, then delivers a remorseful ‘what-have-I-done’ speech. After this, Desdemona gives an ‘oh-no-I’m-dying’ speech before expiring… :smack: 'cos I suppose suffocating someone is like chopping their leg off.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/135 "2006-02-17T15:53:03Z")
Okay, I haven’t read _Lord of the Flies_ since eighth grade, but didn’t Piggy have astigmatism, and not near-sightedness? I could have sworn I remember one of the other characters referring to his “assy-something.”
Whether or not corrective spectacles for the astigmatic will focus sunlight is left as an excercise for the reader.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/136 "2006-02-17T16:01:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Whether or not corrective spectacles for the astigmatic will focus sunlight is left as an excercise for the reader.
It’sd been a long time since I read LOTF, but I do recall discussions in which it was stated that he was myopic.
You can be myopic and astigmatic. You can be hyperoptics and astigmatic. Astrigmatism means that you don’t have identical focusing along all axes, but your eye acts as if it has a cylindrical lens added to any other defects it has. If the astigmatism isn’t severe you can still focus light with a positive astigmatic lens. But in most cases the effect of astgmatism s to prevent you from ever getting a tight spot focus – you’ll be able to get a tight line focus, or a larger “circle of confusion” circular focus.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/137 "2006-02-17T19:01:10Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> He goes on to describe a region consisting of the entire states of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado as a completely barren and empty alkali desert.
I’m almost positive I’ve seen maps on which the entire area we now call the Great Plains, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, was labelled the “Great American Desert.”
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/138 "2006-02-17T19:26:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I just read Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, last nght. The second part, which takes place during the Mormon migration to Utah, starts:
> Quote:
> Originally Posted by Arthur Conan Doyle
> In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier against the advance of civilization. From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence.
>
> He goes on to describe a region consisting of the entire states of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado as a completely barren and empty alkali desert.
>
> He also says some fairly unpleasant things about the Mormons, for which he later apologized, according to the notes to my edition.
Worse than describing big chunks of the American West as alkali desert, he has the Mormons tramping through it on their way to found Salt Lake City. They didn’t – the entire desert is to the west of Salt Lake City. But Doyle was only the first of a long line of mystery writers to screw up the geography of Salt Lake City, as I’ve written here before.
One critic reported of Doyle that, if you judged it only by what you read in his Sherlock Holmes stories, America was a country crawling with murderous secret societies. Besides the Mormon Danites, Holmes tangled with the KKK, the Mafia (!), Chicago Gangs (!), and a thinly-disguised version of the Molly Maguires.
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### Author:  [@Amaranta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amaranta)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/139 "2006-02-17T20:09:32Z")
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> Okay, I haven’t read _Lord of the Flies_ since eighth grade, but didn’t Piggy have astigmatism, and not near-sightedness? I could have sworn I remember one of the other characters referring to his “assy-something.”
Sucks to your ass-mar, Skammer! It was asthma.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2006, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/140 "2006-02-18T00:03:30Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#):
>
> Shakespeare also had Caesar & co. wearing doublets.
>
> Speaking of clothing, I read somewhere that in DeFoe’s time, the word “clothes” referred only to outer garments like coats and jackets, so Crusoe didn’t really strip naked–he was still wearing his pants.
> If you think it sounds kind of lame, I agree.
Also in lower and middle class womens accessories in tudor and elizabethan times were ‘pockets’ or small pouches tied on around the wais under the outer skirts and acessed through side seam slits. I can’t see men going without a spiffy and useful item, and lord knows the slopes and panes [poofy short pants] left enough room for a sack of oranges [a bit hyperbolic, but there is a lot of empty space in a pair of slops]
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