ARTEFACTO A PLACE WHERE TO START – By Adrian Palacios

When we all got it wrong

Now that Darwin and his Natural Selection theory is a daily thing, I dare to say that the language itself, like nature, has a way of evolving based on inexact reproduction too. In more simple words: when somebody hears and memorises  something, the next time he speaks it out it won't be an exact copy of what he heard - that is what boring recorders are for - instead, it would be a mixture of what he heard and what he understood of the original message.

When summing together the effects of time, divulgatory ignorance and the lost in translation effect, we end up having an interesting compilation of facts that we all believe but they are no more than the social propagation of a translation or interpretation error.

Wikipedia has a very comprehensive list, but be warned! some of them are wrong!

These are some the ones I liked the most:

• Inuit people do not have an unusually number of words for "snow".
• The black box on a plane is not black, instead it is bright orange so it can be easily found in an accident.
• A byte is not necesarly 8 bits, it is just the smallest unit that can be addressed by a computer.
• Thomas Edison did not invent the bulb, he made a practical one.
• Putting a teaspoon in the neck of an opened bottle of champagne will not help it retain its fizz
• The electrons in a typical wire actually move at a drift velocity on the order of centimeters per hour and not at the speed of light.
• It is a common misconception that sleepwalkers should not be awakened. It is actually quite dangerous not to wake a sleepwalker as they may injure themselves.
• Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.
• Mussels that do not open when cooked can still be fully cooked and safe to eat.

Author: Adrian

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