Almost everybody knows that Wellington’s final battle against Napoleon was fought at Waterloo. And that bulls see red. But, like a lot of other things we know, these “facts” just aren’t so. The battle of Waterloo was really fought four kilometers away from Waterloo, between the villages of Plancenoit and Mont St Jean. And investigations have established that bulls are actually “colour-blind” – they cannot distinguish one colour from another. This article is an attempt to set the record straight on some more such misinformation.
Moth-eaten: Moths, contrary to the popular notion, do not eat clothes. Some, as a matter of fact, don’t eat anything at all during their adult lives, which are (not surprisingly) brief. It’s the larvae that do the damage; by the time moths are flying out of the cupboard, it’s too late.
Sherlock Holmes: At no point in any of the 56 short stories and four novels that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about his famous detective does Holmes say, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
S.O.S.: The universal symbol requesting aid, contrary to what is often said, doesn’t stand for “Save Our Ship,” or “Save Our Souls.” It doesn’t, in fact, stand for anything. It was selected because it is very simple, both to remember and to transmit in Morse code – three dots, three dashes, three dots.
The bagpipe: While the bagpipe is considered to be the national instrument of Scotland, historically it is hardly more Scottish than Irish. It is a very ancient instrument – as old as ancient Persia – which was introduced into the British Isles by the Romans. Surprisingly enough, some form of the bagpipe is found in Spain, Italy, France, the Balkans, and even Czechoslovakia.
Frankenstein: A common misconception is that the name of the monster in Mary Shelly’s book: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is Frankenstein. Frankenstein was not the name of the monster but the name of the person who created the monster.
Steam: You just think you can see it. Like most other gases, steam is invisible. Only when it cools enough so that minute droplets of water condense, is it visible. If one looks closely at the spout of a boiling kettle, one can observe a small space of what looks like air between the spout and the mist. That is steam.
