Common Fallacies

May 18, 2006 Issue

The vintage date on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling.

The Pony Express riders didn't ride ponies, they used horses.

Cucumbers aren't vegetables—they're fruits.

Polecats aren't cats. They're nocturnal European weasels.

There's no evidence that pirates ever buried their treasure. That myth first came up when Captain William Kidd lied about burying his gold during his trial.

One cannot be given the Congressional Medal of Honor. No such thing. It's just the Medal of Honor.

The correct version of the widely misused phrase "far from the maddening crowd" is actually "far from the madding crowd." Madding means "frenzied."

You might be surprised to learn that more people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.

It is often incorrectly assumed Chicken Kiev was invented by Russians. However, it was actually created by French chefs for Russian nobility.

Despite what you might suspect, Italy imports most of its pasta from the U.S. and Canada.

Our muscles can't push, they can only pull.

George Washington never threw a dollar across the Potomac. There weren't any dollars during Washington's youth—the currency was British.

Panama hats aren't made in Panama. They're made in Ecuador.

Ladybirds aren't birds—they're beetles.

A popularly held belief is that soda water contains soda. It doesn't.

Pintos and palominos are not breeds of horses, those names denote colors.

Compasses do not point to the North Pole. They point to magnetic north, far from the North Pole.

Chest hair has no connection to virility.

Remember Atari games? The company isn't Japanese, even though most people think so. The name was chosen so consumers would think the company, based in Northern California, was Japanese.

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