there were no oxen in his bed. not one and not many, many.
Speaking of pastry, Sheldon is wrong about the origin of the Danish. When he’s playing that game with Amy where they postulate a world that differs from the real world in one key aspect, and he says that in a world where beavers rule, the Danish “never invent their namesake pastry.” Or maybe Amy says it, but Sheldon agrees. What’s known as a “Danish” in the US was invented in Vienna. The Danish did improve and popularize it, though.
oh, yes, i remember that one. viennese pastry! not danish!
back when I get it right
He was wrong to play with Leonard’s Star Trek toy.
Yiddish pronunciation:
Raj: What happened?
Sheldon: Obviously another carnal fiasco with the ‘Shiksee’ goddess.
Howard: Shiksa. Shik-Sa.
Sheldon: Forgive me. Yiddish was not spoken in East Texas. And if it was, it wasn’t spoken for long.
And his attempts to talk Chinese prove Sheldon is no linguist.
He was wrong to “supercharge” his sister’s easy bake oven, causing her to go through 2nd grade with her eye brows pencilled in by their mother.
He was wrong to attempt to purchase fissionable material online.
He was wrong to attempt to scare that bird away with that ultra-sonic thingie.
Zazzles wasn’t all that zazzy.
He was wrong to give the HR woman a copy of Roots.
He was wrong when he “counseled” Alex about flirting with Leonard.
That wasn’t Penny’s arm he was holding. Not that I could really blame him for that mistake.
He was wrong thinking Long Island Iced Tea was like regular sweet tea.
Decorating a tree with Penny’s underclothing was a bit much.
This, very much.
I got to think that bringing in 10-15 cats in the apartment has to violate some article in the roommate agreement.
It probably also violates a city ordinance unless he has a kennel license.
He doesn’t have eidetic memory. I knew a girl in high school with eidetic memory, and Sheldon doesn’t have it.
He was wrong about how the consumption of alcohol would cure him of stage fright.
You can’t learn to swim on the floor.
Well, to be fair, I don’t think anything has ever happened on the show that would demonstrate one way or another that he does. But we can be sure that he doesn’t know what it means.
Keeping bread in the refrigerator.
Sheldon claims that this makes bread go stale, to to crystallization of starch. This is correct, although it only really comes into play if it is a freshly baked loaf straight from a bakery.
In the episode, Penny has is using Wonder Bread or similar. Due to the manufacturing process, the major spoiler effect is going to be mold growth and this is inhibited by butting it in the fridge.
Here’s a real nitpick: in one episode he corrects Leonard on the use of the word “nauseous” versus “nauseated,” but in another uses the wrong one himself.
There was another time when he told Penny she should have said “were” and not “was,” because her sentence should have been in the subjunctive, but whatever she said-- I can’t remember it exactly, but I noticed at the time, and I reviewed with the remote to make sure-- Penny’s whole sentence was conditional, so it would be redundant of her to further use the subjunctive in a subordinate clause. It’s an unusual construction that English professors love to put on exams to trip up students taking college grammar classes. It’s sort of like the “double negative” thing. You want to avoid a “double subjunctive.”
I wish I could remember exactly what she said.
Naw. I think the writers should pay homage to The last moments of the Newhart Show.
Sheldon would annoy the rest of the cast and they would leave the apartment. He’d stand there muttering and suddenly… the Holodeck would freeze. We’d hear the voice of Wesley Crusher telling the computer to cancel the scenario. It blips away with Sheldon looking shocked as he frizzles out.
Cut to Wil Wheaton laughing hysterically and walking away.
Given how pedantic he is, is there a good, in universe reason why he doesn’t use degrees Centigrade casually? Everyone he’d want to talk two should know casually what he means. And so what if he asks Penny if the soup she brought him is exactly 82.2 degrees? She’s still going to threaten to pour it into his lap. And the audience will still get that he wants his soup hot.
He even got out logic-ed by Stewart on gradations of “wrong”
Sheldon: More wrong? Wrong is an absolute state and not subject to degradation
Stuart: It’s a little wrong to say to say a tomato is a vegetable, it’s very wrong to say it’s a suspension bridge
I sometimes wonder if he’s right about anything. Well, as far as I’ve noticed, he’s never said “precisely” when he means “exactly.” That one’s kind of a pet peeve of mine.
He was wrong about Howard and Raj’s scheme of setting him up with an online date. It turned out to be a perfect match.
Howard: “My God - what have we done?”
“Eidetic memory” does not really have any scientific meaning: it does not refer to any distinct, well defined phenomenon. “Eidetic imagery” does, except that it is controversial whether the phenomenon as defined really exists, and, even if it does, according to the most reliable accounts,* it occurs almost exclusively in young children,** does not persist for more than about four minutes, and does not give rise to more accurate recall.
So yeah, Sheldon doesn’t have it, and doesn’t know what it means.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
- E.g., Haber, R.N. (1979). Twenty Years of Haunting Eidetic Imagery: Where’s the Ghost? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2, 583-629 (with commentaries and reply).
** Plus, perhaps, some, but not all, adult members of certain rural, pre-literate tribal peoples; but that is a huge can of worms.
I believe that in the Sheldonverse, it’s only a violation of the roommate agreement if Leonard does it.
Oh, and in the sitdown in the living room with Sheldon, Amy, Leonard, and Sheldon’s Mom, Leonard did a [cough] twentyfive cats [/cough] thing.
Sheldon definitely was wrong not to call his mother to let her know he was in the area and was going to drop in for a visit.
Sheldon was wrong to not insist his mother take him to Houston for more testing, even if he wasn’t insane.