On Tue, 6 May 2008 19:29:29 -0700 (PDT), "Richard R. Hershberger"
<rrhersh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On May 6, 6:45?pm, 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
person.
>> >> 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
largely
>> >> invention
>> >> 9) Lady Godiva - 12% - Definitely real, though the ****d ride was
almost
>> >> certainly fiction
>> >> 10) Robinson Crusoe - 5% ?- The ficitional version of Alexander
Selkirk
>>
>> >I've taken standardized tests like that: ?I 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. ?My
>> >response to such tests depends entirely on what is in it for me.
>>
>> >But... ?Mona Lisa? ?That'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.
I don't think there was ever a really defensible claim of that. It was
more in the same line as Robinson Crusoe - for a while it was arguable
that there never was a person named Mona Lisa who was the subject of
that picture. But now we know that that really is close enough to her
real name, so I doubt anybody even slightly informed can hold that
opinion any more. Hence my suggestion that the writer is not very
knowledgeable about the subject.
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