# Simple factual errors that drive you nuts
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 19, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504 "2009-02-19T03:19:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/81 "2009-02-20T14:06:39Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> No, I wouldn’t. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term “African-American” has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean “black”.
Are you seriously saying that blacks, wherever they live in the world, are to be called “African-Americans”? That’s just beyond stupid.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/82 "2009-02-20T14:33:36Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> No, I wouldn’t. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term “African-American” has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean “black”.
That is, without a doubt, the single stupidest statement I have ever read on the Dope. That INCLUDES my jokes about conquering the world with flying, flame-breathing, etc. monkeys. Those jokes only need to be retired, but that statement needs to be taken to the village square, beaten with clubs until it begs for mercy, pissed on by every witness, and then burned alive as an example to other stupid statements, with no gunpowder placed among the faggots.
It is breathtakingly arrogant to claim that African American = black. To do so implies that all other cultures in the world are mere adjuncts to that of the United States; that their history, their current experiences, their interests, their beliefs, their very being is less important than the fact that they exist in a world in which the United States is dominant. In asserting American hegemony thus, it ignores the obvious fact that America is no longer in such a position, if it ever was; it ignores the growing power of China and India and Russia. It prioritizes the largely American issue of politically correct nomenclature over the right of other peoples to decide how they should be addressed. It pretends that there is no difference between persons from the Dominican Republic and Kenya, between persons from Johannesburg and Abuja, between persons from my neighborhood and Australian aborigines.
I live in Memphis, Tennessee, and my ancestors were brought over on the Middle Passage. But I don’t consider myself “African-American.” Too many damn syllables for one thing, and for another I have no political or emotional attachments to Africa. (That I don’t is the result of an atrocity, but it’s the way it is.)
The fact that there are many persons are too lazy and stupid to think before they speak and thus wish to call any person with dark skin “African American” does not make their usage any less idiotic or offensive.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/83 "2009-02-20T14:49:53Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Are you seriously saying that blacks, wherever they live in the world, are to be called “African-Americans”? That’s just beyond stupid.
Totally agree. Are you smoking crack, **Rigamarole**?
It may mean generic “black” to certain ignoramuses in the US, but that usage should stop there, and should not be encouraged, on grounds of “duh!”.
I promise you my British afro-Caribbean heritage sister, living in Tennessee, has smoke metaphorically pouring out of her ears when someone calls her “African American”.
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### Author:  [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/84 "2009-02-20T15:00:43Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> Ding-ding-ding! I _knew_ someone was going to post this.
>
> Tell you what, look up “quantum” in a dictionary. In mine, the Physics use is the _fourth_ definition. I’ve said it a million times, when Julius Caesar used “quantum”, he wasn’t talking subatomic particles.
>
> (So I guess my complaint are those people who think “quantum” only refers to tiny quantities.)
I’ve always taken Quantum leap as progress that ‘jumped’ forward without going through intermediate steps…a true revolution rather than incremental development.
I don’t think Quantum leap is generally misused.
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### Author:  [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/85 "2009-02-20T15:03:33Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> Walla!
Ect.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/86 "2009-02-20T15:06:38Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Actually, me is used when you are the object of a sentence. Myself is used when you are the subject of a sentence which involves a reflexive verb.
Oops - you’re right; at least my examples were correct.
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### Author:  [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/87 "2009-02-20T15:41:09Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> No, I wouldn’t. This has been discussed at great length here. The finding being that the term “African-American” has transcended any literal interpretation and does in fact mean “black”.
Perhaps if you’re American… but I assure you that the rest of the world seems to do pretty well in distinguishing “black” and “African” from “African-American”.
I think it’s fair to say that the term African-American is used almost exclusively to describe black people in America (as opposed to, say, Americans who are descended from Ismaili muslims from East Africa, Boer Dutch colonits from South Africa, or Sephadic Jews from Morocco)… but just because A=B doesn’t mean that B=A.
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### Author:  [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/88 "2009-02-20T15:48:48Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#):
>
> Everyone seems convinced that toilets drain in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere.
This was probably one of the first well known “facts” that I found out was utterly wrong. I was a teenager at the time and it really altered the way I looked at the world. Since then its become a pet peeve of mine.
I once read a book by [Jon Snow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Snow), a respected UK news reader and journalist, that perpetuated this myth. Even though it was only a passing aside I politely emailed him to say it was wrong. He replied that I was mistaken because a) he had seen it happen, and b) he’d just done a straw poll with his colleagues and they all agreed. I replied back with a bunch of links proving his error and got no further responses. I still like the guy, but it’s interesting that even people who apparently strive for accuracy can be blind to the truth.
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### Author:  [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/put_down_the_sabre)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/89 "2009-02-20T16:38:15Z")
> [@Mahna\_Mahna](#):
>
> \
>
> but just because A=B doesn’t mean that B=A.
Err… **what?**
pdts
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/90 "2009-02-20T16:39:41Z")
> [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](#):
>
> Err… **what?**
>
> pdts
I think he means that just because all African-Americans are black, it doesn’t mean all blacks are African-American. Better phrased as “all A=B; all B =/= A”
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### Author:  [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/91 "2009-02-20T16:48:14Z")
> [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](#):
>
> Err… **what?**
>
> pdts
Sorry, that’s what I get for posting before I’ve finished my first coffee.
What **RNATB** said (except for the part about me being a he… because last I checked, I’m very much female 🙂 )
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/92 "2009-02-20T16:57:44Z")
> [@Mahna\_Mahna](#):
>
> What **RNATB** said (except for the part about me being a he… because last I checked, I’m very much female 🙂 )
While we apologise for the error, the edit window has now closed. Please make the necessary changes and move on. 😃
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/93 "2009-02-20T17:35:08Z")
“A dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s” is one I’ve heard I don’t know how many thousand times. (It ain’t.)
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/94 "2009-02-20T17:49:00Z")
> [@Lamia](#):
>
> Both in real life and on the SDMB people often make some remark about how in historic times you’d be considered elderly at 30 (or some other fairly young age) and would surely be in the grave at 40.
I’ve actually known college professors (not in history admittedly) to use this one, and it pops up on TV now and again. The simplest look at famous people should correct this one- hell, Eleanor of Aquitaine bore 11 children, went on campaign, and was locked away in a castle for many years and still managed to make it into her 80s, and if you visit cemeteries from the 18th century you’ll see plenty of graves of noventarians and even occasional centenarians.
A related one that irks me is the notion that women dying in childbirth was a pretty much everyday occurrence. True it was definitely a lot more common than it is now, and true it was a leading cause of death for women in their teens through menopause (still is for that matter), but the vast majority of women did **NOT** die in childbirth, and while most people would certainly have known somebody who had a child die in infancy or childhood, most probably would not have known a woman who died giving birth.
* * *
Another historical one I’ve heard a lot recently was about Abraham Lincoln being born in poverty in a one room cabin. This is not exactly untrue, but it’s not that simple. True, he was born in a tiny one room cabin, but that’s because the law stated that farmers taking advantage of the ceded lands like Tom & Nancy Lincoln had to erect a house on their property immediately if they wanted to file their claims (this was to keep land speculators from snatching up 45,000 acres by just paying poor people to sign up for land and then buying it for next to nothing; a house meant that the people were going to live there), and consequently farmers would build the quickest house they could, which was tiny. You can always go back and add to it or build another one later (and the Lincolns did).
In the second place, while the Lincolns always lived in log cabins, so did pretty much everybody else on the frontier and many people east of the Appalachians. The mansions that survive as house museums with beautiful carved banisters and marble fireplace mantels and the like belonged not to the well to do but to the VERY WELL TO DO, the Donald Trumps and Steve Jobs’s of their day (though perhaps not as famous); most people in towns and in the country lived in very simple houses that were usually worth a maximum of a few hundred dollars and often not that. Farmhouses were so simple that it was common for farmers to burn them down when moving in order to recoup the nails, hinges, and other iron hardware. So, while Tom Lincoln was poor by our standards and certainly wasn’t rich by teh standards of his own day, he would have been something like ‘middle class’ for his time and place.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/95 "2009-02-20T17:52:12Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> When **Star Trek: Voyager** premiered alot of articles mentioned the fact that Tuvok was the first _African-American Vulcan_. He’s not even human.
Are you sure they didn’t just mean “the first African-American actor to play a Vulcan”? I don’t know if the actor in question is actually African-American (he’s obviously black, but could be Canadian for all I know), but I’d think it was his background and not the character’s that was considered noteworthy.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/96 "2009-02-20T17:55:22Z")
> [@Lamia](#):
>
> Are you sure they didn’t just mean “the first African-American actor to play a Vulcan”? I don’t know if the actor in question is actually African-American (he’s obviously black, but could be Canadian for all I know), but I’d think it was his background and not the character’s that was considered noteworthy.
That would depend on who was making the observation. I recall more than a few persons complaining that thre could not be black Vulcans, based on the fact that we had seen, oh, two dozen or so, and of course the had to be typical of the species in every way.
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### Author:  [@Rack-a-Bones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rack-a-Bones)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/97 "2009-02-20T18:00:12Z")
> [@Juniper200](#):
>
> Free Ballard!
Lutefisk!
> [@Baldwin](#):
>
> In references to celestial objects, I frequently hear a figure that’s impossibly close or impossibly far away. Examples:
>
> 1. Several _Twilight Zone_ episodes featured an Earthlike planet (or “asteroid”) that was supposedly something like “ten million miles from Earth”.
>
> 2. I’ve got the National Geographic Channel on. Interesting docudrama about the Space Race. There’s a promo for another show, with the narrator saying: “When you wish upon a star, **even at the speed of light,** it would take your wish **five million years** to get there!” WTF? Where the Hell did they get that figure?
I think everyone missed the point. What is the speed of a wish? My wishes and dreams travel at infinity times the speed of light
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### Author:  [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/98 "2009-02-20T18:06:25Z")
> [@Rack-a-Bones](#):
>
> My wishes and dreams travel at infinity times the speed of light
You wish.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/99 "2009-02-20T18:07:33Z")
> [@Rack-a-Bones](#):
>
> Lutefisk!
>
> I think everyone missed the point. What is the speed of a wish?
Infinitely slow. For example: I shall now wish that Natalie Portman was standing before me doing an erotic dance. I predict that wish shall not be answered.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-factual-errors-that-drive-you-nuts/486504/100 "2009-02-20T18:11:16Z")
> [@Rack-a-Bones](#):
>
> I think everyone missed the point. What is the speed of a wish? My wishes and dreams travel at infinity times the speed of light
I don’t think that’s a mistake, exactly, then. The guy was saying that even if your wish travelled at the speed of light it would take 5 million years to get there. If your wishes travel faster, more power to you.
I think my criticism- that you can’t wish on a star 5 million light years away because you can’t see it- is much more sensible. 🆒
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