h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I started to put this on 'Ask', but then I asked myself:

What kind of commentary do I want? The sort of wisecracks they used to serve up around the courthouse in between spitting tobacco juice, or really insightful remarks based on enlightened discovery?

No contest.

So here it is, a freebie film tip for today: Mental Floss' '50 Common Misconceptions about Science'.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/07/11/video-50-common-misconceptions-about-science/

This video had Elektra giggling helplessly. I'm not sure about one or two of Mr Green's factoids, but most of them are spot on.

We particularly love, 'The bald eagle actually sounds like a cross between a squeaky toy and a seagull'.

All that common sense at high speed - what a refreshing break from 'reality'.

Enjoy!

Obviously, you'll all have brilliant things to say now. You'd better, after that build-up.

From Mental Flosse,s web site here is an article on the etymology of OK. Here it a neat summary with philosophy to boot.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/50042/whats-real-origin-ok

re 2:

"Deutscher Sprachrat (German Language Council) has a more conclusive explanation.

Okay has its origin in printing. In the early 19th century the US-American print industry was dominated by German immigrants (printers and typesetters). If a proof reader didn‘t find any mistakes in a press proof he released it to press run by marking it o.K. (ohne Korrektur - without correction). " (Hans Mof)

Sounds plausible enough to spoil the sport, yes?

Not really, Pierce. If you'll read down, Mental FLoss doesn't find that explanation too compelling.

Neither do I.

Although it's true that German printers were very prominent in the Early Republic, I don't think they had much to do with this one.

They DID have something to do with making us celebrate the 4th of July, rather than the 2nd, though, I believe. (Date on published version of Declaration of Independence, which came out in German almost as soon as it was published in English.)

Of course, when it comes to the US, Germans are fond of claiming as much territory as possible culturally. I don't blame 'em - they were very influential, and don't get enough credit - but it's a bit like that old joke we had about the Russsians inventing everything...

I was pleaseed with this version. It fits the evidence musch better than the other folk etymologies ghosting around. And the smoking gun can actually be found in print, another plus.

That lame joke about Andrew Jackson has been in circulation ever since 1840, so it's nice to find a source for it finally.

Hi and thanks, Dmitri! I did not have a single one of those misconceptions although there are three things on the list I did not know: that Alan Shepard was the first American in space - I did know that Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space. I did not know about the chemical that supposedly reveals pee in water, or the allegation that Nobel's wife had an affair with a mathematician. The rest I all know - I mean the real things not the misconceptions. I caught one wrong 'factoid': brontosaurus was named not based on the skull - which the discoverer (Othniel Charles Marsh) knew to have been missing - but on the skeleton. The skull was added to the skeleton knowingly being based on a different species. It was soon *decided* that this skeleton did not differ enough from another skeleton that Marsh had described previously as Apatosaurus to warrant a different genus name. The first skeleton didn't have a skull either, and even today if no skull (or other bones) of a skeleton are found, it will be reconstructed with the missing parts based on its closest relatives - which is what Marsh did.

There are enough theories to start an endless thread

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

Personally I find Allen Walker Read's theory the most convincing - but you'll never hear me admit that!

, Pierce. Good one!

I didn't know that story about Alfred Nobel, either, Willem. It made me laugh, though.

The one about the water? It's a story deliberately spread by pool attendants in this country to scare badly-behaved children.