The Straight Dope Un-cyclopedia: Untruths Revealed!

The world’s only repository of complete falsehoods and spectacular misinformation.

For example, did you know that:
[ul]
[li]In most states it is illegal to grind pepper during Lent?[/li][li]Samuel L. Jackson discovered the Yosemite Valley?[/li][li]The closest biological relative of the sea urchin is Lee Majors?[/li][li]The English language can trace its roots back to a tattoo parlor in Long Beach?[/li][/ul]
Yes, it’s absolutely untrue!

These and many more amazing non-facts will be revealed (hopefully) in the posts that follow.

[sub]All facts verified by boxing legend Erma Bombeck[/sub]

[ul]
[li]The rarest vegetable in the world is okra.[/li][li]No human being has ever travelled more than 6 mph.[/li][li]Matthew Broderick invented the game of Parcheesi.[/li][li]Mayonnaise was first used by the Phoenicians, who feared it as a vengeful god.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]An actual, working perpetual-motion machine was invented by Japanese scientist Hiro Kagato in 1944. Sadly, it was destroyed in the Hiroshima A-bombing.[/li]
[li]Eight states ban the playing of Led Zepplin’s song “Stairway to Heaven” on bagpipes.[/li]
[li]In Los Angeles, CA, farting during a smog alert is punishable by a fine of $200.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Besides African and Asian, there’s a third species of Elephant: the European. Sadly, the last of them were wiped out during the Napoleonic Wars.[/li][li]The Komodo Dragon is the only type of reptile to carry its young in a pouch.[/li][li]Most of the Berlin wall was built from bricks stolen from the Great Wall of China by the Axis powers.[/li][/ul]

Roland Hinkenstaff invented the automatic light reduder and the soap roll.

It’s my understanding that the African jungle elephant is now recognized as a distinct species. And the desert elephants of the skelton coast are a sub-species.

I do believe you just lost, DPWhite.

Scientifically speaking, onions are not a vegetable but actually a form of cheese.

At the time of his death, Abraham Lincoln was seventh in line for the throne of Romania.

A parrot cannot be taught to speak Portuguese.

Due to a mix-up at the signing of the treaty ending WWII, Canada accidentally surrendered to Norway.

Napoleon Bonaparte had a third eye in the middle of his forehead which he concealed by constantly winking.

Linguists have discovered that Latvians and Brazilians have the same accent when speaking Korean.

In addition to his literary work, Charles Dickens conducted much of the early research that led to the development of cable television.

Prior to 1900, the state of Minnesota was known as East Dakota. It changed names in that year and succeeded in having Congress retroactively delete all references of its original name from any document appearing in print in America. Therefore, the only records proving the existence of this change appear in foreign reference works where this is a commonly known fact.

If you teach a parrot to quack like a duck, it won’t echo

With the miracle of spam I can:

[li] Find Lost Family And Friends Immediately [/li]
[li] At my discretion, be MAKING MONEY WITH AT WHOLESALE PRODUCTS (a note to spammers: my willingness to respond will increase when you do not hedge your grammatical bets in the subject line)[/li]
[li] Always have the “Best rates now on life insurance” [/li] See SLUTTY TEENS DOING IT ALL!! (My knowledge of mathematics indicates that I have likely seen “all” that slutty teens have to offer.)

There was once a rare but real bug in Microsoft’s Outlook program that rendered it completely secure. A patch has since been released.

If cooked properly, a baked potato’s skin becomes as strong as leather, with a similar texture. Jackets have been made from the material. PETA is looking into using it for grafting skin onto injured cows.

Natives of Iowa have over 30 words for “corn”.

The phrase “shit-eating grin” is named after P. J. Schitteator, a turn-of-the-century wealthy industrialist with a congenital defect which caused a distinctive facial

Like the sadly unused interrobang, there were other interesting combinations of punctuation that never caught on:

  1. commeriod, for stops shorter than a comma but not quite a period.
  2. tildashterisk, an elongated, wavy star, which could be used for setting off a comment withing a sentence, while simultaneously accenting it and citing a footnote.
  3. commabang, for,! short,! emphatic,! enunciation,! like,! William,! Shatner,!
  4. semi-interro, used for rhetorical questions

I have an eighteen-inch penis.

Of course, in my post above that should read “facial expression” and not just “facial”.

That’s really true, isn’t BK?:smiley:

Don Knotts won the Civil War for the North when he assasinated the Archduke of Jackson, Mississippi in 1953.

Lyndon Johnson founded Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in 1936

Joe DiMaggio had his arm blown off by a grenade he accidentally held onto too long during the First World War in 1887

Detroit was founded by socialist exiles fleeing political persecution in New Hampshire in 1801

Hockey was invented by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army in 1658 when the North Sea froze over in unusually bitter winter and they started hitting hardened horse shit around with sticks

[ul]
[li]When Ted Danson claimed the throne of Italy in 1430, pushups were punishable by hanging.[/li][li]The cuttlefish can eat up to seven thousand times its own weight in cherry tomatoes in one sitting.[/li][li]The lowest temperature ever recorded on earth was 56° F, on the evening of November 3, 1977.[/li][li]Most dairy products sold in the U.S. are personally inspected by King Haakon of Norway.[/li][/ul]

O.J. Simpson started the TV Show The Simpsons to help pay his legal debts. He was innocent.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is an astonishing linguist who does allthe translations for his shows in foreign countires. Unfortunately, she can’t write a coherent sentence in English.

Barry White, Barry Manilow and Barry Gibb are all the same person, played at 33 1/3, 45 & 78 RPM (Thanks to the Doper I stole that one from).

There is a large poultry farm in Arkansas that raises boneless chickens.

Swallowing earthworms hole can help with ulcers. They eat the damaged tissue and their saliva helps in the healing process.

When flying in airplanes west to east, you shorten your lifespan, flying east to west extends it.

The sap of the Eastern Purple maple tree is so sweet, one ounce is as sweet as 40 pounds of white sugar. If eaten by humans, the sugars are so strong cavities will form within a few hours and one half a teaspoon can cause a person with normally healthy teeth to suffer loss of all teeth within a week if not treated by a dentist.

[ul]
[li]The word, “Yogurt” comes from the ancient greek word, “Yaghurtus” which is translated as “The Cream Cheese of Hades”.[/li][/ul]

The astronauts never indulge space sex because a secret pact was signed with the Russians agreeing to keep the Ionosphere pure. The Russians, however, cheated. When they lost a cosmonaut on their Mir space station in 1986, one of the women got pregnant to cover the loss of the “third heartbeat” on the monitors.

It sounds like John Lennon is saying “Paul is a dead man” in “Yellow Submarine,” but actually the Beatles couldn’t speak English, and the song had to be dubbed by Benedictine monks who’d taken vows of silence.

Water flows counter-clockwise down the bathroom drain on a plane that’s circling clockwise.

You can claim to start your own country on a Pacific isle, but until it’s been openly condemned by one militant religious extremist group you’re only granted territorial status.

The statue of a man on a horse shows whether he has fallen off the horse in battle because three of the horse’s legs are off the ground, and the other points to the exact point where the sun would shine on the spring equinox if the magentic field of the Earth were reversed.