Common Misconceptions

cheywoodward

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Dec 2, 2009
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Everyone has them. Nobody wants them. They're like mental herpes. So here's what I want you to do: post a few common misconceptions and then post what the truth of matter is. In addition, please post the source of what the correct information is. Wikipedia articles, if they are sufficiently well written and cited, are acceptable

My contributions:

1: The correct way to use an ellipsis.

Most people type an ellipsis like this: "morel gypsum...morel gypsum" or this: "morel gypsum... morel gypsum". The truth is that an ellipsis, when put between two words without any added punctuation, should look like this: "morel gypsum ... morel gypsum".

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

2: The "danger" of cracking the bones in your body.

The truth is that there is no evidence that cracking the bones in your body will give you arthritis. However it can result in "functional hand impairment". So It's not a good habit but it won't destroy your body.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1004074/?tool=pmcentrez
 

Tsukuyomi

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May 28, 2011
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I still remember the cracking bones thing. Heard it a few days ago, strangely enough. Unfortunately I can only think of one I hear frequently, although I'm sure more will come to me at about three in the morning when I'm sound asleep.

1: All iPods are MP3 players but not all MP3 players are iPods.

I would imagine most of the good folks here at the Escapist know this difference, but the marketing is so strong that I still end up correcting people who ask about my MP3 player. Typically it happens with less technically-inclined people.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3_player

I'll post another if I can come up with it and no one else has already mentioned it.
 

Best of the 3

10001110101
Oct 9, 2010
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Huh, this thread reminds me of Penn and Teller's Bullshit. Look it up on youtube. A load of great shows on there. One I remembered recently watching, the uselessness of Recycling.
 

Dags90

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Oct 27, 2009
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Best of the 3 said:
Huh, this thread reminds me of Penn and Teller's Bullshit. Look it up on youtube. A load of great shows on there. One I remembered recently watching, the uselessness of Recycling.
The Recycling video was probably one of the ones most biased by their hardcore libertarian leanings. There's a lot of truthiness and cherry picking in that video.

I guess the "glass is a liquid" and "a penny from the Empire State building will kill someone" are my contributions to common misconceptions.
 

Daaaah Whoosh

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Jun 23, 2010
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A lot of people don't understand color blindness. I know I didn't for a long time, but after some research I've discovered that there are three different kinds of color receptors in your eyes, and color blindness occurs when any number of these receptors is missing or malfunctioning. I believe I have anomalous trichromacy, which basically means I'm screwed up just enough to have to read the sides of crayons, but not enough to convince anyone that I actually have a form of color blindness.
 

silver wolf009

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Jan 23, 2010
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My Little Pony: Friendship is magic is only for little girls. It is not, and if the herd shall answer the call, this point shall be proven.

The animation is great, the songs are good, the characters are actually funny, and while it is corny, it's a good corny.
 

Zorpheus

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Aug 19, 2009
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It's called an iPod Touch. Not "iTouch". Apple has never referred to the iPod Touch as an iTouch.

Bags159 said:
Um, in all seriousness... the misconception that Macs are immune to any sort of virus / malware.
And this. One of my first encounters with a computer virus was on a mac.
 

Kevonovitch

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Apr 15, 2009
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that game sequels are going to hold up to everyones expectations and be "more of the same, plus new stuff, but better than the original." seriously, your only setting yourself uyp for a let down most of the time, cuz generally, the quality, is on par, which frankly, makes sence, and seems to me, where it should be roughly.

even if it shares the name w/ it's predicessor, it's still a Seperate game. very simple concept, developer's understand and utalise (except for franchices.) other's pretty much just update, tweak, and re-release off of the base original, which is fine too, it's still a different game, still it's own seperate entity.
 

Palademon

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Mar 20, 2010
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APOSTROPHES DO NOT PLURALISE!!!

Seems obvious, but I see it so many times, even in thread titles.

It is only pluralising when the word you want more than one of is not proper to the english language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe
 

shadowslayer81

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May 9, 2011
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Hackers only want to go around and steal credit card information.
Most of the time they just want to learn, and maybe play with some stuff.
 

Jark212

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Jul 17, 2008
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Wikipedia actually has a page of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

Really interesting stuff...
 

Zorpheus

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Also, the song "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors is not an allegory for masturbation. The creators of the song have denied it repeatedly, stating it's a song about someone questioning his own identity due to loneliness and conflicting emotion while in love.
 

shadowslayer81

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Jark212 said:
Wikipedia actually has a page of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
Really interesting stuff...
Ooh, thanks for that.
I'm having a lot of fun going through this.
 

BabyRaptor

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Dec 17, 2010
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Re bone cracking:

When I had my son, I went through most of my labor without a working epidural. The first one they gave me just didn't kick in. Eventually, the nurses acknowledged that I wasn't actually faking it and repaged the anesthesiologist.

He started asking about back injuries. I couldn't think of any, but my grandmother mentioned that I have a habit of popping my back. That turned out to be the issue. Popping your back causes scar tissue to develop, and the doctor had put the epidural in scar tissue instead of in my actual spine.

So, ladies, moral of the story. If you fancy a pain-free childbirth, don't pop your back.
 

Just_A_Glitch

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Dec 10, 2009
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Tsukuyomi said:
I still remember the cracking bones thing. Heard it a few days ago, strangely enough. Unfortunately I can only think of one I hear frequently, although I'm sure more will come to me at about three in the morning when I'm sound asleep.

1: All iPods are MP3 players but not all MP3 players are iPods.

I would imagine most of the good folks here at the Escapist know this difference, but the marketing is so strong that I still end up correcting people who ask about my MP3 player. Typically it happens with less technically-inclined people.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3_player

I'll post another if I can come up with it and no one else has already mentioned it.
This. I hate it when people do this.

I will never refer to an mp3 player as an iPod unless it is an iPod, simply because I hate iPods. Unfortunately, I own one (Christmas gift after my Zune broke. Damn, I miss my Zune...).
 

cheywoodward

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Dec 2, 2009
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silver wolf009 said:
My Little Pony: Friendship is magic is only for little girls. It is not, and if the herd shall answer the call, this point shall be proven.

The animation is great, the songs are good, the characters are actually funny, and while it is corny, it's a good corny.
I don't understand the internet's love affair with My Little Pony. I watched an episode and it didn't seem to be abhorrently evil or bad. It just seemed boring. But I've got no issue with your love of it and it seems like one of the better children's animated TV-shows out there.