Hey all! I thought it'd be nice to make a thread where we gathered all those little things that seem insignificant or unimportant to other people, but that you notice everyone always gets wrong. Not major myths that need to be debunked (like the silly 10% of the brain myth), but just small things, tiny tidbits of knowledge which aren't really important, but which are fun little bits of information, and which everyone keeps getting wrong, things like small misnomers, misconceptions, oft-repeated incorrect 'facts', things people think they know but are wrong, and stuff like that.

Really, it's just an excuse to show off how pedantic we can be! Try to back things up with sources though, if you're expecting people to contest your statements. Here's hoping we can make a few people go, "Huh, didn't know that, cool!"



Here's a few of mine:

The morningstar weapon was not, as almost everyone believes, a weapon made up of a wooden shaft, a chain or rope, and a spiked ball at the end. Rather, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_star_%28weapon%29. The weapon frequently misnamed morningstar is in fact a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flail_%28weapon%29.



The .38 special calibre is not, as many people believe, a peashooter calibre, being in reality a medium-strength handgun calibre, virtually the same as the standard 9mm used in most pistols, except that it fires a heavier round at lower velocity. It's not a hand cannon, but it's certainly not the spitball shooter most video games and films depict it as, and its +P and +P+ ammunition increase its stopping power significantly.



Duels in the Old West weren't very common, certainly not as common as the movies predict, and contrary to popular myth, duels were not survived by who was fastest on the draw. As any handgun user would tell you, revolvers and pistols require careful aim to have a chance at hitting something. Drawing and spraying the area meant you hit nothing, and the winner was usually the man who took the time to aim.



A Koala bear is not a bear, it's a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koala.



There is no such thing as a bullet-proof vest. No body armour is impenetrable, which means the correct name is bullet-resistant vest.



Speaking of armour... The idea that armoured knights could not stand up when knocked down in combat or were winched onto their horses is a myth. Plate armour was heavy, sure, but its weight was distributed very evenly across the body, making it less tiring to wear than chain mail, whose dead weight hung from the body, straining the shoulders in particular. Plate armour was actually not that restrictive to movement as many people think, since it wasn't made to withstand blows, but rather to deflect them by angling the metal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg is some dude on Youtube proving the point in a slightly embarrassing way. Also as a side note, medieval knights did not do battle in the ostentatious full plate armour often seen in films. Gothic plate wasn't introduced until the Renaissance, and even then it saw little use in actual combat.



You can not catch a sixually transmitted disease from a toilet seat. Pathogens http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2011/05/12/3212346.htm, so even if some managed to make it to a toilet seat, they would be dead very quickly. Even if they did survive, they would not be able to infect a human being since they require a point of entry, and typically, those never even touch the seat. So if you have one, just fess up rather than resorting to the toilet seat myth



The fall of the Western Roman Empire was not an enormous bloody battle or a fiery cataclysm. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire gradually ceased to exist as a geographic and demographic entity by massive people movements and different people settling in the Empire, which had become extremely poorly defended. There were small invasions, to be certain, but the Roman Empire did not 'fall' as such, rather than simply fade. The date of 476AD is set as its marking point because it was the moment when Odoacer the Goth (not the eyeliner-kind) deposed the last Roman (child) Emperor Romulus Augustulus, but that date is simply chosen because they had to pick one determined point in time.



A tomato is not a vegetable but a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato, even though it's often lumped in with the vegetables for culinary purposes.



In cigarettes, the the tar is not the addictive substance, the nicotine is, while it's the tar that is to blame for most of the toxic effects. Many cigarette manufacturers ramp up the nicotine in their cigarettes because it makes them more addictive, and most people are aware of that. But what many people don't know is that many cigarette producers also http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16904804 to their tobacco to make them even more addictive and make them have a more attractive taste, and to increase the acetaldehyde, which has seriously addictive properties as well.

The capital of Tanzania is NOT(!) Dar Es Salaam, it is Dodoma!

People don't speak Chinese, it's Mandarin.

Greenland isn't a country!

With a few notable exceptions, silencers on guns don't render them anywhere near silent and should be referred to as sound suppressors. It's impossible to silence a supersonic rifle bullet which is why you find the likes of the Soviet VSS with its specially designed sub-sonic 9mm ammunition, though even then the clattering of the gun's mechanism means it's only quiet compared to its regular counterpart.

Speaking of Rome...I once had a history teacher that said Carthinians instead of Carthaginians. Also, I had an english teacher that pronounced denarii (the currency of Ancient Rome) as Den-AR-ee instead of Den-AR-ee-eye.

Disneyland and Disney World are different places!!! They're not interchangeable!!



Yeah that's the only one I can come up with for the time being. Am sure I'll be back with more.

Vatican is not the Smallest country in the world, Sealand is!

what, nothing on Molotovs stormo? tsk tsk I'm disappointed

oh I've got one. Ninjas http://i.imgur.com/lH7N7.jpg They probably looked like everyone else... you know, to blend in and avoid getting detected.

I could care less.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

I instantly love this thread!


Speaking of ninjas, they only carried their katanas on their back to carry them if they had to climb. It is almost impossible to draw a decent length sword from a sheath on your back unless you were a contortionist. There was a youtube video I watched on the subject, but I sadly no longer have the link.

It is also possible for a right handed person to draw a sword from their right hip. This was especially important for the warriors that used large round shields because if they were to draw it from their left hip they would have to move their shield away from their body which would fully expose their torso to attack. This was also covered in that youtube video.

Both of these are also minor pet peeves that I have with any game that has you store your weapons (such as a giant greatsword) on your back. You would never be able to walk with it stored there, much less carry it. Besides the fact that you would NEVER carry daggers on your back (directed at Dragon Age).



Ah...another fact...

You should actually say "I could NOT care less" as that would actually mean you do not care. This is generally fine when used in spoken language, but is incorrect when in written language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninjat%C5%8D*

Seeing as the article mentioned says that there is little historical evidence of those swords ever existing, it's kind of pointless to name it.

Then again, if you look at ninjas in pop culture these days they are generally using katanas instead of the shorter and more practical wakizashi. Even then, they were still most likely worn on the hip.

Except for the people who speak Cantonese .

Scotland, while being part of the United Kingdom, remains a country in its own right, as such status does not require sovereign statehood.

Not everything in Australia is vicious... we also have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna are pretty safe, too, as long as you don't try to hug them (due to the obvious spikiness). Koalas, on the other hand, have mean claws.

A creature can be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison, but safe to be bitten by; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom, but safe to eat; or poisonous and venomous, and thereby dangerous both ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

Dammit, was going to say this

It's called The Elder Scrolls V, not Skyrim V.

Not the "Scotland is a country" argument again...

I wouldn't say tar is to blame for most toxic effects, but pretty harmful yeah. Tar settles on the lining of airways in the lungs. It stimulates a series of changes (or mutations, if you want to sound scarier) that'll lead to obstructive lung diseases and/or cancer. However, cigarettes also contain carbon monoxide which combines with the haemoglobin in your RBCs to become carboxyhaemoglobin (and carbon monoxide combines with haemoglobin far more readily than oxygen does) thus meaning you don't get as much oxygen as usual. As for nicotine, not only is it addictive, it messes with the arterioles so your extremities don't get as much blood as before as well as releases adrenaline.

Just wanted to clear that up for anyone who might think "Oh, if we take the [one of the many substances in cigarettes] out, we're all good!"

As for fun facts that we get wrong:

Irony: Irony isn't something amusing, it's when something happens contrary to your expectations.

Nauseated vs Nauseous: Both of them are valid words in their own right! I hear people saying "That's not even a word!" when one or the other is said to them, and they've taken sides as to which is right or wrong.

No on shot Eddie: In Reservoir Dogs everyone argues over who shot Eddie in the final showdown. No one did.

If I think of anything else, I'll throw it in later.

I imagine knives and short swords would have been the go, since they're more practical for close quarters work, and would be less conspicuous overall (I gather class affected what weapons one was allowed to carry, so a katana would have made one stand out somewhat).

I'm confident that our Dutch friend was fully aware of that...