Jan 06 2009
Ten fun facts from… Wikipedia (with a twist)
I like to find out that I died, and that I’m currently in a ballet in China, and all the other very accurate and important things that the Wikipedia site brings us all. — Stephen Fry on Wikipedia
The preceding comment, combined with the following facts hand picked from Wikipedia by yours truly, sums up everything you need to know about Wikipedia.
However, there’s a twist. All of the facts in this list have actually been removed from the Free Encyclopedia at some point for being, shall we say, “less than factual”. Nevertheless, for a brief period of time, each of the following have at one point or another masqueraded as truth when actually they are a load of old codswallop.
Or are they?
Read them and make your own mind up…
- Jonathan Pimp Agnew (nicknamed “Tony Blair”, “Swaggers”) is a well hard French lapdancer and former professional cricketer that often likes to startle ocelots.
- Chair racing is a newly formed competitive sport, usually held as an inner-campus or office/workspace sport.
- National Zombie Awareness Day is on the 21st of August. The object of the day is to spread awareness to the people that zombies exist and are a real threat to society.
- In English, merrr is a word that is sometimes used as an expression for words or feelings where the specifics are not considered important to the speaker or writer. It is not often seen in formal writing, except when transcribing speech.
- Employe may appear to be a misspelling, but it was an intentional change to the traditional spelling of employee by General Motors.
- Most trees are made out of wood, including wood trees.
- The snap-billed mreetwass is a legendary creature with the body of a unicorn, the tail of a griffin, the face of a Korean person, and the wings of a leprechaun (if a leprechaun had wings).
- The Danish Kitchen fly is a fly that is indigenous to Denmark. If not in a kitchen it is usually living in garbage areas. It is attracted to kitchens that have mainly been cooking rice, peppers, or small quantities of coffee.
- Flying ferrets are the most unique of mammals. Like their distant relative the flying squirrel, flying ferrets glide through the woods surprising onlookers everywhere.
- Pilgmilgftonite may very well be the greatest word ever invented because you can apply it to anything, for example: ‘wow, that’s so pilgmilgftonite!’ or ‘Did you see that huge pilgmilgftonite?’
Pfft. And they say Wikipedia is not a reliable source. I have one thing to say to those people… er, there are a lot of true facts on Wikipedia, too. So, don’t let this list put you off using Wikipedia to expand your knowledge base, but never forget to double check the source of anything you read there.
Further reading
- A selection of deleted Wikipedia content, preserved at Illogicopedia.
- Deletionpedia, home to deleted Wikipedia content.
I have definitely seen some inaccuracies on Wikipedia, but as you mentioned, there is a lot of good information too. I have recently had to educate my kids not to use it as a resource for their school papers. They didn’t realize that just anyone could input data, thus making it not a very reliable resource!
I knew someone at one point who attempted to inject a very bad computer joke into the wikipedia article on Java (needless to say, this is the computer language, not the location). It was a riff on Java’s tendency towards objectification of various groups–technically true, since its main feature is that it turns everything that will hold still long enough into an object.
The admins were a bit less amused than the other students he showed his alterations to.
I liked the Zombie day lol that was good and the chair race. I will have to use good old Wiki more. By the way how do you put the Digg button in your posts? I will digg it too.