SAY WHAT?

I am amazed by the amount of false and unsubstantiated data that is floating around Internet. I am not sure if it is because of the volume and speed of communications or that the Internet is just a breeding ground for misconceptions. Don’t get me wrong; there is a lot of good data out there too. But one really has to evaluate everything he comes across for accuracy. Here is an example I ran into the other day. The following list of ‘facts’ was sent to me by email from a friend:

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING?

1. "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right. (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?)
2. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. (I'll bet you're going to check this out.)
3. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
4. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". (Are you doubting this?)
5. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
6. The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?)
7. The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). (Yep, I knew you were going to "do" this one.)
8. There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You're not doubting this, are you?)
9. There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." (Yes, admit it, you are going to say ...... a e i o u)
10. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (All you typists are going to test this out)
11. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
12. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
13. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
14. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (Some days that's about what my memory span is).
15. A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
16. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
17. A snail can sleep for three years. (I know some people that could do this too.)
18. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
19. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
20. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
21. Babies are born without kneecaps.They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
22. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
23. In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
24. If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
25. If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.
26. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
27. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.
28. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!
29. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
30. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
31. The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
32. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. (Good thing he did that)
33. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
34. There are more chickens than people in the world.
35. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
36. Women blink nearly twice as much as men...................

Now you know everything!

This list of ‘facts’, under various different names, appears on hundreds, if not thousands of web sites and blogs, etc.

So, out of these 36 ‘facts’ how many can you spot as being false?

Well, I started checking the data (on the Internet), and I found at least 22 to be demonstrably false? Here is the list:

1) "TESSERADECADES" is a longer left-hand word on the typewriter.
2) The Rhyming Dictionary lists "billionth, millionth, month, seventh, trillionth, zillionth" as rhymes of "month" .
3) "undreamt" (its in the dictionary) like "dreamt" also ends in "mt"
4) The eye grows until we are about 10 years old.
5) Another word that ends in "dous" is "jeopardous".
6) There are actually 34 words, not 2, that have all the vowels in order:
AERIOUS, ABSTEINOUS, ABSTEMIOUS, ABSTENIOUS, ABSTENTIOUS, ACERIFLORUM, ACERIFLORUS, ACHEILOUS, ACHEIROUS, ACLEISTOUS, ADECTICOUS, ADVENTIOUS, AFFECTIOUS, ALEIKOUM, ALPESTRIOUS, ANEMIOUS, ANNELIDOUS, ARSENIOUS, ARTERIOSUM, ARTERIOSUS, ARTERIOUS, AVENIOUS, BACTERIOUS, CAESIOUS, CAMELIOUS, CARNELIOUS, FACETIOUS, FRACEDINOUS, GAREISOUN, GRAVEDINOUS, MAJESTIOUS, MATERIOUS, PARECIOUS, PLACENTIOUS, TRAGEDIOUS.
7) "rupturewort" can be typed on one row of the keyboard and is longer than "typewriter" .
8) There are only 26 states printed on the Lincoln Memorial on the $5 bill.
9) A goldfish has a memory of several months.
10) Sharks actually do not blink at all.
11) Babies kneecaps are initially cartilage and get bony later on.
12) February 1865 did have a full moon.
13) The Turkey and the rabbit were domesticated within the last 2000 years.
14) According to my calculations 1 Chinaman is born every 2 seconds. If it takes 1 second for a person to walk past you then 8 abreast is 16 times faster than 1 ever 2 seconds. Therefore, after a long time, they would all walk past you.
15) According to my calculations 6 months of waiting at red lights comes out to about 13 1/3 minutes per day 7 days a week. I know this is high for me, and I would think for the average American.
16) Scissors were invented in Egypt in 1500 B.C.
17) The American Flag has never appeared on any Canadian Bank Note.
18) Peanut oil is used in some processes for making Glycerol from which you can make Nitroglycerine which is used in making dynamite. So in a roundabout way, maybe... nah.
19) The QE2 Cruise Liner travels form 31-50'/gallon diesel depending on how calculated.
20) Niagara Falls has never frozen in recorded history.
21) Winston Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace.
22) Men and women blink at approximately the same rate.

OK, some of the references are a little obscure, though accurate, but things like how many states on a $5 bill; give a break, count them! Most of what I listed indicated just blatantly false statements.

Now people are certainly entitled to have their opinions about anything, and in most cases it is pretty clear when someone is speculating or giving their opinion. But sometimes opinion is stated as if it were fact.

So moral of the story, is there is that rampant false data is shooting through this mass communication system we call the Internet. Beware, and always check your data. Oh, and by the way, everything I say is true.