On May 6, 11:25=A0pm, Greg Johnson <greg....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 May 2008 19:29:29 -0700 (PDT), "Richard R. Hershberger"
>
>
>
>
>
> <rrhe...@[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-di=
dn'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
sur=
vey
> >> >> > goes on to say that 58% believe Sherlock Holmes was real -- this
i=
s
> >> >> > 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
sens=
e, but
> >> >> arguably a historical character in his Artos incarnation
> >> >> 3) Robin Hood - 51% - Many ficitional treatments but, again, there
a=
re
> >> >> historians who offer reasonable evidence that he's based on a real
p=
erson.
> >> >> 5) Mona Lisa -35% - As you say, undeniably real
> >> >> 6) Dick Turpin - 34% - Incontestably a real person, though a real
sh=
it 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
al=
most
> >> >> certainly fiction
> >> >> 10) Robinson Crusoe - 5% ?- The ficitional version of Alexander
Selk=
irk
>
> >> >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:
=A0that
> >Leonardo painted her from his imagination? =A0Just 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.
So the idea was that the name "Mona Lisa" was a later addition? That
makes the question "Mona Lisa: real or fictitious?" ambiguous.
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