Popular Misconceptions

To start this blog off, I’ve been going through a list of list of ‘facts’ that has been circulating by e-mail. Third on the list is the apparent piece of trivia that:

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone

A quick search shows that this bit of information has been repeated hundreds of times across the internet. Whether it’s true or not is harder to ascertain. There are few qualifiers missing from the statement. It presumably refers to American TV, and prime-time presumably the bulk of the evening. Nevertheless, the main message of the story, that couples weren’t originally shown to share the same bed on TV, is true.

The novelty of early movies and television, and their ability to appeal to large audiences, did cause great concern to the authorities, who were quick to impose rules of censorship. This was true in both America and Britain, although different systems of censorship arose. In America, The Motion Picture Association even went so far as to write a ‘code’, which explicitly defined what was and wasn’t permitted. Although this had somewhat dubious legal right of enforcement, the ideas within the code were largely followed, by the film and television industries. (Incidentally, I’ve often heard it reported that the code specified that if a man and woman were shown in the same bed together, they must each be seen to have one foot on the floor! However, as I can’t find any evidence of this so far, I’m wondering whether this might, too, be a popular misconception.)

The full text of the 1927 Code includes showing ‘man and woman in bed together’ as being something over which ’special care be exercised’. The revised 1930 code suggests that ‘the treatment of bedrooms must be governed by good taste and delicacy’.

It was this context that caused early American sitcoms and dramas to show husband and wives sleeping in separate beds, odd as this may seem today.

The question of this post, though, is whether Fred and Wilma Flintstone really were the first to break this taboo? Well, the Flintstones originally aired on ABC, in ‘prime time’, from 1960-1966. And it seems that Fred and Wilma were shown to share a bed (presumably made of rock, in ‘Bedrock’). But the Internet consensus (whatever that’s worth) suggests that they weren’t, in fact, the first.

Instead, it appears that this liberal distinction goes instead to Mary Kay and Johnny, which aired between 1947 and 1950. Indeed, this is said to be the very first sitcom, which came so early in television’s history that it had to be broadcast live, as there was no easy way to pre-record it. According to a snopes.com’s page, they shared a bed, and a single one at that! The page goes on to ask why this was, when so many of the sitcoms that followed it had separated sleeping arrangements.

How do we explain this lack of the squeamishness about bedroom (if not bathroom) functions that was soon manifested in the television industry? Who knows? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the show was on Dumont, that it was live, or that in those days the production of shows was financed by sponsors rather than by the networks. Perhaps the medium was just too new for anyone to have grown uptight about such concerns yet. All that matters is that Mary Kay and Johnny were there first.

Whilst there appears to be no recorded evidence for this, enough people seem to have remembered it for it to be considered true.

Still, The Flintstones can still claim to have been the first animated show to depict a couple in bed together on prime time television. Although, as the first animated prime time show full stop, it did have a slight head start.

So why is this such a popular misconception? I guess this it’s down to the surprise factor marriage bed-sharing being such a late phenomenon to arrive on TV, and the sheer joyous triviality of The Flintstones having apparently been the first to cross this moral boundary.

I’m kicking this blog off by deconstructing, one by one, a list of ‘well I never!’ facts that were forwarded to me in an e-mail (which is presumably circulating across the internet). The first was the origins of the phrase rule of thumb, and the second is another supposed origin, this time of the word ‘golf’. The e-mail states:

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled
“Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden”…and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

Like the story about the origins of ‘the rule of thumb’, the appeal of this misconception is probably in its supposed revealing of a misogynistic past which would now be considered ‘politically incorrect’. The story appears to uncover a slightly devious history behind a word and sport which is now commonly known.

The claim is, however, entirely incorrect, and once you think about it, quite obviously so. The ‘gentleman only, ladies forbidden’ phrase is, for example, tautological, repeating the same information twice. It’s also a slightly awkward use of language. Furthermore, why would you name a new sport after the rules about who can play it? Asking your friend ‘do you fancy a round of gentleman only, ladies forbidden’ hardly trips off the tongue.

It doesn’t take long to find a few existing references on the internet which successfully debunk this myth. Snopes.com notes that:

Golf is an old word, one that first appeared in our written language in 1425. One theory says the word ‘golf’ derives from the Dutch word ‘kolf’, a generic term for a stick, club, or mallet used in a number of games similar to tennis, croquet, and hockey. However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, claiming the Dutch word ‘kolf’ as the origin of ‘golf’ is problematic for a variety of reasons. Another theory ascribes ‘golf’ to the Scottish ‘goulf’ (also ‘gowf’), a verb meaning ‘to strike or cuff’. This theory would at least place the origin of the word with the people who invented the game. As for ’striking or cuffing’, an integral part of the game is, after all, hitting the ball.

The website also amusingly concludes that an equally implausible origin theory for ‘golf’ could be that it comes from the word ‘flog’ spelt backwards.

The Phrase Finder website also falsifies the ‘gentleman only, ladies forbidden’ theory, noting that “the real derivation of ‘golf’ is obscure and the subject of considerable dispute”.

Another reason why this story isn’t true is that if it were, ‘golf’ would be an acronym (a word formed from the initial letters of a phrase), like ‘radar’ (’Radio Detection and Ranging’) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Acronyms are a fairly rare, and recent, linguistic phenomena, unlikely to date back as far as the history of golf.

Whilst it takes some time for genuine acronyms to occur (outside of the LOLing and ASLing from teenage chat rooms, that is), backronyms are all to easy to invent. This is where you take a word, pre-existing or made-up, and then invent a phrase using its letters. It’s a slightly corny technique that’s often used to invent names of local clubs or societies, or even company names or products.

A famous made-up backronym, much beloved of schoolboy pranksters, is that the sports brand Adidas actually means ‘all day I dream about sex’ (which for them is probably true).

Backronyms are a common source of popular misconceptions, and ‘gentleman only, ladies forbidden’ is just one of them. Who started it, we’ll probably never know…

My last post reprinted a ‘well I never’ e-mail containing no less than 22 supposed true facts, many of which are actually popular misconceptions. If you haven’t read it yet, go back and have a guess for yourself which ones you reckon will turn out to be untrue.

I’m going to go through them one by one looking at the evidence, starting with the purported origin of the phrase ‘rule of thumb’:

In the 1400’s a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb. Hence we have “the rule of thumb”.

As with many popular misconceptions, a quick Google search is all it takes to cast doubt over this claim. The number one result, as with many searches nowadays, is a Wikipedia page, Rule of thumb. A section called origin of the term takes up the majority of the page, and no less than seven competing histories are listed. On the domestic violence theory, Wikipedia says:

Linguist Michael Quinion, citing the research of Sharon Fenick, notes that there are some examples of a related usage historically — most notably with regard to a supposed pronouncement by a British judge, Sir Francis Buller, that a man may legally beat his wife, provided that he used a stick no thicker than his thumb. However, it is questionable whether Buller ever made such a pronouncement and there is even less evidence that he phrased it as a “rule of thumb”; the rumoured statement was so unpopular that it caused him to be lambasted as “Judge Thumb” in a satirical James Gillray cartoon. According to Quinion, the term “Rule of Thumb” was first documented in English in 1692, long before Buller’s reported pronouncement. The first known usage of the phrase “rule of thumb” in direct reference to domestic violence was in 1976, in the book Battered Wives by Del Martin

There’s even a copy of the James Gillray cartoon, ‘Judge Thumb’, in which Judge Buller is depicted selling thumb-shaped sticks to wife-beaters in the street. Charming. Still, whilst the rule is mentioned, it’s never explicity referred to as the ‘rule of thumb’.

Another website, phrases.org, suggests that the judge may not even have made this ruling, referencing Edward Foss, who apparently wrote that “no substantial evidence has been found that he ever expressed so ungallant an opinion”.

Yet more attempted debunking comes from Trust Canlaw, who put it down, rather amusingly (and I suspect falsely) as ‘yet another feminist myth‘.

So there seems to be no evidence of a ‘1400’s law’. Even if there was, however, (and there does at least appear to have been the notion of such a law), this still wouldn’t be good evidence for the origin of the term. After all, such a rule could itself be based upon an already-existant phrase and idiom ‘the rule of thumb’.

If you stop and think about it, using a thumb as a basis for a rule, or rough guide, is perfectly natural, be it measuring, pointing or estimating distances or wind directions (all of which Wikipedia gives as possible origins). Each of these rules of thumb could have arisen independently, leading to the phrase being adopted as a more general idiom. We do, after all, have measurements derived from feet and hands. Fingers, paces and even arm spans.

None of these more natural explanations for the origins of the phrase are quite as interesting as the domestic violence one however, which comes across as more shocking and surprising, both qualities which can help a popular misconception spread.

One way that popular misconceptions can spread is via ‘list of facts’ e-mails that travel virally from office to office (especially on Fridays, it seems). The e-mail below, which I was forwarded last week, is one such example (garish fonts and colours removed).

There’s a few truths on there, but they’re mostly fairly obvious misconceptions. A few minutes of Googling will soon give you falsifications. There’s a few that are more disputeable however, which seem like they’re probably false but which aren’t so easily disprovable.

I’ll be going through some of these in more detail in future posts, but for now I thought I’d post up the whole e-mail and leave you to guess for yourself which ones you suspect may be popular misconceptions.

Well, I never knew that !!!!

In the 1400’s a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb. Hence we have “the rule of thumb”.

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled
“Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden”…and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
!
The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king in history:
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If
the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural ! causes.

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter “A”?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bullet-proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey

In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes.When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence th e phrase……… “goodnight, sleep tight.”

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month,
which we know today as the honeymoon.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts… So in ol d England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them
“Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down.” It’s where we get the phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s”

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet your whistle” is the phrase
inspired by this practice.

Don’t delete this just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it……….

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluo! d aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of t he hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

>~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow!!!!!!

Incidentally, if you’ve received an e-mail like this, but which has different ‘facts’ on it, feel free to e-mail it to frankie@frankieroberto.com.

Writing introductory posts on new blogs is pretty hard, but here goes.

Some time ago, I had the idea of compiling a collection of ‘popular misconceptions’ - those nuggets of information that get passed from person to person, told with an air of authority, but which turn out to be completely false, often quite obviously slow. I can’t even remember what gave me the idea any more, but I registered the domain a while back (over a year ago), started to keep notes, and then kinda forgot about it.

Faced with the choice of whether to renew the domain or not, I’ve decided to ressurect the project and just launch it in a fairly open, beta state, and to encourage contributions from anyone who has something to add.

Popular misconceptions are similar to urban legends, stories about unlikely or fantastical events that supposedly happened to someone (sometimes the ‘friend of a friend’ or whoever is telling the story). The collecting, and debunking, of urban legends has quite a history - most famously on the excellent website snopes.com and the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban. Popular misconceptions are different though, as they’re not cautionary tales but are instead perceived facts about how the world is. Often, they’re so pervasive that people will insist that they must be true.
Examples include the idea that giraffes evolved long necks in order to eat leaves from the tops of trees, that tv cameras add a stone to your perceived weight, and that water flows down the plughole in different directions depending on what side of the equator you’re on.

These popular misconceptions, and more, will be discussed, debated and debunked on an upcoming ‘wiki’ section of this website, where anyone can contribute by simply editing any of the pages. This blog, meanwhile, will track some of the significant finds and developments, as well as telling my story of how I go about discovering the truth behind these popular misconceptions - including occassional ‘guest posts’ from invited experts.

So that sums up this first post, and the start of the project. On my to-do list is getting together a proper logo and design for the site, but for now, the default themes will have to do…