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Long held misconceptions
CygnusZ
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Back when I was in elementary school I loved reading fantasy books. It started in second grade when my father bought me The Book of Three. I enjoyed the sense of adventure, and all the strange creatures that the adventurers encountered on their journey. After reading the prydain books I moved on to Xanth, the Deathgate Cycle, until I finally stopped reading fantasy books when I entered high school.
Now, of all the odd creatures in all the fantasy books I ever read, the Unicorn never struck me as being particularly unrealistic. It's just a horse with a horn. To this day it seems possible to me that such a creature could really exist. I mean, pegasus and dragons are plain silly, but I could see unicorns herds running about in eastern Europe. A matter of fact, I thought that unicorns were real until our class took a trip to the bronx zoo in the last year of middle school. The biology teacher asked us what animals we would like to see in their habitats, and I bravely [foolishly] said that I would like to see a unicorn. The whole class burst out into laughter, and I was saved by the fact that everybody thought I was joking. That night when I told my parents, they were kind enough to inform me that unicorns are not real.
It's a bit of embarassing story, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here. I'd like to hear some of the misconceptions that many of the people here held onto that were dispelled way too late in life.
Now, of all the odd creatures in all the fantasy books I ever read, the Unicorn never struck me as being particularly unrealistic. It's just a horse with a horn. To this day it seems possible to me that such a creature could really exist. I mean, pegasus and dragons are plain silly, but I could see unicorns herds running about in eastern Europe. A matter of fact, I thought that unicorns were real until our class took a trip to the bronx zoo in the last year of middle school. The biology teacher asked us what animals we would like to see in their habitats, and I bravely [foolishly] said that I would like to see a unicorn. The whole class burst out into laughter, and I was saved by the fact that everybody thought I was joking. That night when I told my parents, they were kind enough to inform me that unicorns are not real.
It's a bit of embarassing story, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here. I'd like to hear some of the misconceptions that many of the people here held onto that were dispelled way too late in life.
CygnusZ on
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Unicorns do exist. Behold, the unicorn!
hippopotamus
hipos potamos
river horse
one horned river horse
unicorn!!!!!!!!!
But they are in the OCEAN!
http://victorhh.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/narwhal-41.jpg
edit: And I seemed to have missed the consensus to go the funny route. Well, more funny route.
Poldy, dear, that's a rhinoceros, not a hippopotamus.
But if you want an etymology, rhinoceros comes from the Greek word "ῤινόκερως", composed of "ῥινός", meaning nose, and "κέρας", meaning horn! Nose horn!
Edit: Beated!
That one was amazingly popular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_tree
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyUvNnmFtgI
Greatest thing ever.
I was actually being serious. Unicorn myths probably originated from Europeans hearing about these one horned animals in Africa.
Sadly, it's still around.
This is why I was held back in kindergarden.
The saddest part: I've been to South Korea!
This is awesome!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4
After watching it and read the comments, I realized it was an April Fool's joke, and I suddenly became really sad.
Then again I already knew it was faked so maybe that affected my perception.
Scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.
No, but I do remember "When Cars Attack III" which was amazing!
Edit: at least I thought there was a 3, but google isn't helping me find it.
I think we made fun of you for this in some chat thread a long while back.
Shit was funny.
For the longest time as a kid, I was fucking terrified of the day killer bees would finally reach Oregon, and end life as I knew it. I'd have horrible thoughts about getting stung by a bee, already bad enough, and suddenly being swarmed by thousands of bees.
Because of how they were often present in fantasy and ghost stories that I KNEW were fake, I was convinced as a child that pirates where completely fictional, and when my friend's parents told me that their coffee table was made out of a door off of an old pirate shit, I thought they were pulling my leg.
Curious. Did you also assume knights in armor were not real in that case?
Well, a door made from old pirate shit would be odd.
Your post reminds me of that Venture Bros. episode.
I may have. The difference is that I heard far less stories about ghost-knights.
I had a decent grasp on "what shit isn't real" as a kid, and since pirate lore is so closely associated with ghost ships and skeleton crews, it just got them lumped in.
"Bat-Kid Spotted!"
"Half Crocodile, Half Man!"
"Woman Gives Birth to Alien!"
"Big Foot Found in Sewers of L.A.!"
"Woman With Three Breasts!"
since prague is sort of a hip indie place in europe
sigh
That's how the city's pronounced by the literate.
When I was a kid I heard somewhere that the world's ability to grow chocolate would be exhausted by 2000, and every year I would grow a little sadder by the impending death of my delicious sweets.
Instead you just get to be sad by losing bananas soon.
Also, Fish, but I don't care so much about fish.
This is the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread.
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
What? My bananas! Don't take away my bananas! Explain yourself!
Sid Meier's Pirates! went a long way to helping me understand the era of piracy. I have to admit though, I always wondered how the Spanish managed to make a silver train in the mid-1500s. Or, for that matter, why they kept on taking the train to Spain.
Bananas are all cloned. They do not reproduce. They have no genetic variation. They are/will be decimated by diseases within our life time.
Maybe I'm off by a little
As for things we should have learned a long time ago, I have no idea where peanuts come from. Maybe I'll look that up.
EDIT: Ah, the underground part of a low plant.