On May 6, 6:45=A0pm, Greg Johnson <greg....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 May 2008 07:13:13 -0700 (PDT), "Richard R. Hershberger"
>
>
>
>
>
> <rrhe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >On May 6, 9:36?am, "John Dean" <john-d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> Scour Old Cereal Bowls wrote:
>
> >> > Supposedly, 23 percent of (take your pick) all British people or
> >> > British people under 20 believe that Winston Churchill was just a
> >> > myth.
>
> >>
>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1577511/Winston-Churchill-didn'=
t-
> >> > really-exist,-say-teens.html
>
> >> >http://uktv.co.uk/gold/stepbystep/aid/598605
>
> >> > UKTV sponsored the study, and the only bit on their website doesn't
> >> > say anything about kids being asked, but it does say it's based on
> >> > 3,000 responses.
>
> >> > Doesn't that number suggest it's not a scientific survey? ?The
survey=
> >> > goes on to say that 58% believe Sherlock Holmes was real -- this is
> >> > getting even more bogus sounding. ?It goes on to list "Top ten
> >> > fictional characters that the British public thinks are real" with
#5=
> >> > being Mona Lisa -- except she wasn't fictional....
>
> >> Their list of 'fictional' characters is more than a little weird:
>
> >> 1) King Arthur - 65% - ficitional in the Richard Harris Camelot
sense, =
but
> >> arguably a historical character in his Artos incarnation
> >> 3) Robin Hood - 51% - Many ficitional treatments but, again, there
are
> >> historians who offer reasonable evidence that he's based on a real
pers=
on.
> >> 5) Mona Lisa -35% - As you say, undeniably real
> >> 6) Dick Turpin - 34% - Incontestably a real person, though a real
**** =
as
> >> opposed to the, er, Robin Hood persona of the fictional Turpins
> >> 8) The Three Musketeers - 17% - real people, though Dumas' work was
lar=
gely
> >> invention
> >> 9) Lady Godiva - 12% - Definitely real, though the ****d ride was
almos=
t
> >> certainly fiction
> >> 10) Robinson Crusoe - 5% ?- The ficitional version of Alexander
Selkirk=
>
> >I've taken standardized tests like that: =A0I can guess what the test
> >maker thinks is the right answer, but know that it is wrong, or at
> >least that the question is so badly written as to be meaningless. =A0My
> >response to such tests depends entirely on what is in it for me.
>
> >But... =A0Mona Lisa? =A0That's just bizarre.
>
> It's not all that bizarre, since until 2005 there were lots of
> competing arguments about who the woman in the painting actually was.
> Obviously the person who wrote this article never got the news.
But was there ever any suggestion that she wasn't a real person: that
Leonardo painted her from his imagination? Just because the sitter of
a ****trait is unknown doesn't put that person in the "fictional"
category.
Richard R. Hershberger
|
