Truth or Fiction

Okay, what do the following things have in common:

French Kissing

French Toast

French Tip Manicure

French Horn

French Braid

French Fries

If you answered; none of them are French, then congratulations! Yeah, you can also add to that list the beret and the croissant. None of these things really have anything to do with France, except for popularity there and the ongoing concept that things are classy if they come from France.

That's what today is all about. Misconceptions.

The croissant is Austrian, the tip manicure was created by Max Factor in Hollywood and French Kissing seems to be connected to Alexander the Great. Let's crack on.

It seems that for the longest time, people assumed that Machiavelli's great work The Prince was satire. This explanation came up to counter the accusations that it was a thoroughly immoral book. I've read it several times and I promise you, it's neither funny or immoral. It's much worse: The Prince is practical and utterly pragmatic. Even cynical if you wish, but it's not funny, I promise

You may have heard about how when a Pharaoh died, they slaughtered his servants and buried them in the same tomb, so that they could keep serving their god-king in eternity. Seemingly, this actually happened, but not always and mostly just in the earlier dynasties. I guess a civilization that spanned over 3000 years has to change a little from time to time.

One of the standard go-to's when people describe how brutal and cruel the Spartans were, is the fact that they killed all deformed babies. And it's true, they did. But so did everyone else. For millennia, pretty much every culture ever, used to quietly get rid of babies that would grow up as nothing but a burden, because life was much harder back then. It seems monstrous to us, (and it is) but that's how it was.

Finally let me ask this: who expected the Spanish Inquisition?

If you answered: no one, then you have been watching too much Monty Python. In fact they gave everyone 60 days notice so that they could get their affairs in order. Further more, they asked every accused person for a list of their enemies. If their accuser was on said list they usually let them go and arrested the accuser instead. Beyond that they were a terrible, awful organization. But fact is fact.

Another fact is that we're done for this time, and until next we meet, you should have a good week!

Not always true

Today we will look at commonly held beliefs, or rather common misconceptions. There are lots of factoids out there that have been passed around, that simply aren't true. Here are a few:

1. Your tongue is not separated into different parts for each kind of taste.
2. It's better to wake a sleepwalker than to not. They will be confused, but less likely to hurt themselves. It's not dangerous to wake them.
3. Bulls don't hate the color red. They are colorblind.
4. The Great Wall of China is not visible from space. Neither are the Pyramids of Giza.
5. Bats aren't blind.
6. Birds don't rely much on smell, so it's safe to touch a baby bird that has fallen from the nest.
7. Eating before going swimming does not increase the risk of cramp. Alcohol might though, and being full might make you short of breath.
8. Neither chastity belts or iron maidens existed during the dark ages. They were invented much later, and the iron maiden was invented to sell tickets, not for torture.
9. Sugar doesn't make children hyper-active, just excited for a treat.
10. Vaccines do not cause autism!
11. The bible doesn't mention how many holy men that visited baby Jesus.
12. Undercover police in the U.S. don't have to admit being cops if asked.
13. You don't have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report. In fact, the sooner the better.
14. Salieri and Mozart weren't enemies as the film suggests. They were in fact friends.
15. Napoleon was above average height for his time.

There we go, fifteen commonly held beliefs debunked. If you would like to learn more, go look it up. Wikipedia is that way →.

Until next time, have and informative and interesting week!

How's that not true?

OK, tonight we're talking pop culture, so we'll start with a pop quiz.

Now don't think about the answer, just go with the first one that pops into your head. Oh, and you don't need to write this down. Here we go:

Which creature loves cheese?

Which creature loves carrots?

Which creature loves doughnuts?

If you answered mice, rabbits and cops you're perfectly normal, but pretty wrong. And I'll tell you why.

Pop culture is to blame. You see you're used to these stereotypes because they've bombarded us for years on TV and in films. But where and when did they appear?

Well, the mice is the oldest and comes from the time before refrigerators. In those days people used to hang food to keep it from spoiling, but unlike bread and meat, you can't hang a piece of cheese. You have to put it in the larder. So when hungry Mr. Mouse comes looking for a morsel, he's actually a bit disappointed to only find cheese. But he'll eat it just the same. And what are people supposed to think when they time after time catch Mr. Mouse eating their cheese? Why that mice loves cheese, of course! But if you really want to make the little fellow happy, let him at your seed and grain supply, then he'll never leave.

Next, is the doughnut conundrum. Back before the 1950's, police officers used to walk their beat, or patrol area. This of course kept them in relatively good shape, but more importantly it kept them awake. But in the 50's when they started to get cruisers, and drove everywhere, they faced the very real problem of staying up all through their shift. And to make matters worse, the only places that were open all night back then, were the doughnut shops. (it took all night to get the next days supply ready). So when enough people walked by doughnut shops filled with nothing but cops (getting fatter) the cliché was born. In reality it seems cops eat no more doughnuts than any other group.

Finally, we have the carrot and the rabbit. To begin with, I should point out that rabbits do eat carrots, but that it's bad for them. Way to much starch you see. But the culprit behind this myth is none other than Bugs Bunny in A wild Hare (1940)

And the creators stole that gag from the 1934 Clark Gable movie It happened one night. Apparently people got the reference back then, but most of us haven't seen it today. We pretty much all know the “Eeeh, What's up doc?” line though. Just goes to show, you never know what you can trust. Certainly not rabbits...

Until next week, I'll leave you with a carrot munching Clarke Gable. Enjoy!

True Meanings

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in an Elder Scrolls Online beta test.

As soon as I saw my invite I thought to myself “Aha, this will make for an interesting blog post”. Unfortunately the NDA is still in effect, and since I'm not fluent in legalese, I decided to err on the side of caution and say the only thing I know I'm allowed to say about the game:

I like it!

That's all I'm going to say to avoid any misunderstandings. But to leave this post at that wouldn't be very interesting, so I decided to mull over a couple of interesting other potential misunderstandings while I'm on the subject.

First up is a word that's often misused due to a slight misunderstanding. Evacuate. Way too often the word is used like this: The people in the boat were evacuated. This is wrong. Very wrong. The sentence should read: The boat was evacuated. You see, to evacuate is to empty something out, and to empty out people, is to give them enemas.

You can evacuate almost anything, boats, elevators, houses etc, and in so doing, the people do leave the premises. You just don't want to the fire brigade to evacuate you in the middle of a fire...

Next up is a common and fairly well known misunderstanding. Big Ben. This is not the name of the clock tower, but the name of the great bell inside the tower. The tower itself was up until 2012 simply called... the clock tower. Or the Parliament Tower.

During the jubilee in 2012 however, it was renamed The Elizabeth Tower in honor of Queen Elizabeth II.

Still most people will continue to call the whole shebang Big Ben, and to be fair, who cares? As long as everyone knows what their talking about.

And now I'm going to end with a tasty treat. How many of you have ever eaten a Danish? No not a person from Denmark, but the pastry.

Interestingly enough, they're not really Danish at all, but Austrian, Viennese in fact. But they quickly became very popular in the Nordic countries, and here they are in fact called wienerbröd (Viennese bread). They're known in the English speaking world as danish because they were made popular by Danish immigrant bakers in the early 20^th century. So now you know what you're eating when you are gobbling down those tasty flaky treats covered in jam.

That's it for this week. I hope have a good one!