Churchill allowing Coventry to be bombed.

[Foolmewunz]

I think that's Apollo20's point --- Churchill never sent troops to fire on the miners, and everyone present at Tonypandy knows it, and yet the myth that he did was prevalent and enduring.

In her book The Daughter of Time (in which she tries to prove that Richard III is innocent, but that's another story) Josephine Tey suggests that "Tonypandy" should be adopted as a word for historical bunk. "Oh," one might say, "that's a load of complete Tonypandy".

'Cos apart from anything else, it sounds like it should mean that. It's a phonaestheme.

Derail: I had a history teacher who assigned Daughter of Time as required reading. This was over thirty years ago, my first exposure to critical thinking in the classroom, and I still think it's a good idea. (The same teacher made us write reports based solely on contemporary accounts and documents rather than digging the encyclopedia-type scholarly articles. Amazingly different approach to teaching history from the historian's perspective.)

p.s. I know discussing words with you could be suicidal (figuratively), Doc, but how do you make it out to be a phonaestheme? I'd say closer (but not quite there) to onomatopoeia, but I see no relation in vowel or consonant repetition to "bunk" or any similar words.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

The info I can find is that refined uranium (natural isotopic concentration - mostly U-238) takes approximately 250,000 to 500,000 years to reach secular equilibrium with all daughters all the way down to polonium-210.

You asked for U-235, so I assume you basically mean highly enriched uranium. I'll try to find you that info but it's not apparently in any of my books on the matter. It would be substantially less though. Maybe a few thousand years?

I posted in the completely wrong thread

 

[SpitfireIX]

p.s. I know discussing words with you could be suicidal (figuratively), Doc, but how do you make it out to be a phonaestheme? I'd say closer (but not quite there) to onomatopoeia, but I see no relation in vowel or consonant repetition to "bunk" or any similar words.

I think it's actually an ideophone^WP. Ideophones may be onomatopoeic, but are not required to be.

(Gee, I knew that English minor would be good for something someday. )

 

[ElMondoHummus]

The carrot-night vision urban legend actually has its roots in German folklore which is why the British spread the myth in the first place about RAF carrot consumption - because they knew Germans already believed it.

It's also not without basis in fact - lack of Vitamin A does indeed cause poor vision (including night vision) and carrots are a good source of Vitamin A (though of course not the only one).

Not to derail the thread, but: Wasn't their a similar myth about the N. Vietnamese and VietCong during the Vietnam war regarding poor night vision? I thought I heard/read something similar to that.

 

[SpitfireIX]

This one is actually recounted as if it's true history, in an episode of Babylon 5. The account is put into the mouth of the hero character, John Sheridan, who is supposed to be a bit of a military history buff. I can't remember which episode it was.

I wonder if that dramatic and forceful account strengthened the impression that the story was actually true?

Rolfe.

The episode is "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum," one of the pivotal episodes of the second season.

Of course, in the episode "A Spider in the Web" we learn that Sheridan is something of a conspiracy theorist, so his butchering of history is quite understandable.

 

[Big Les]

The carrot-night vision urban legend actually has its roots in German folklore which is why the British spread the myth in the first place about RAF carrot consumption - because they knew Germans already believed it.

It's also not without basis in fact - lack of Vitamin A does indeed cause poor vision (including night vision) and carrots are a good source of Vitamin A (though of course not the only one).

Related story - I was told by someone who'd spoken with him that the famous night-fighter pilot "Cats Eyes" Cunningham hated the PR nickname he was given.

 

[Travis]

I posted in the completely wrong thread

Good, I thought I was going insane for not knowing why you were talking about what you were talking about.