Amazing untrue records

[SeanF]

World's Shortest Three-Page Thread:
This one, which at the time of this posting, appears to only actually have two pages.

EDIT: And which I have now ruined by making this post.

[Gillianren]

WORST REASON EVER GIVEN TO HOLD A WAR
Pretty much all of them, although Jenkin's Ear comes close.

The man's name was Jenkins. Thus it is properly (Trebuchet asked it in another post, but I wanted to comment on the next bit of yours) "The War of Jenkins' Ear." Though it would be even more properly "Jenkins's," for some reason, it isn't; I've never seen it called that.

MOST INCONSEQUENTIAL TREATY EVER SIGNED
The Treaty of San Eterre'-Napkin, which was signed in 1589 between Luxemburg and Luxembourg, decreed that the use of the letter 'o' in the spelling of the duchy was to be considered optional, but that the City of Luxembourg would be spelled Luxemburg.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth II felt that this treaty was a slap in the face of England, where she had recently decreed that all o's would be followed by u's (which earned Elizabeth the sobriquet 'O U Kid'), and felt that the dropped 'o' was a way around this rule and a personal insult. Elizabeth ordered Sir Francis Drake to immediately reassemble the Fleet (which had been dispersed following the defeat of the Spanish Armada the year before) to undertake the Enterprise of Luxembourg. Sailing with units commanded by himself, Frobisher, Hawkins and Howard, Drake was stymied upon learning that Luxembourg was actually on the other side of Belgium from the Channel and completely landlocked, not to mention that Belgium itself would not come into existence until 1839 as a consequence of the Treaty of the Twenty Four Articles. He did, however, write a short 'Treatife on ye Exceedingly Filly Namef of ye Phlegmingf and Balloonf', which became a best seller in England due to the hilarity of his misspellings; sales were disappointingly small in Scotland, due the Scottish lack of any sense of humor.

The Treaty, which soon became known as the 'Fiat Lux', was never actually put into force, since the only copy was lost when the great-great-great grandfather of Benjamin Bathurst, who was carrying the document from Luxemburg to Luxembourg, got out of his carriage, walked around the horses, and disappeared.

This one delights me, misidentification of Gloriana notwithstanding. For example, did you know (real true fact coming in!) that Sir Frances spelled it "Drak"?

[Weird Dave]

Greatest fraction of land devoted to public houses
The Turf Tavern, Oxford, UK, has a floor area of 300 square metres (3229.17 square feet), of which 300 square meters (3229.17 square feet) is occupied by a pub called The Turf Tavern. This is the portion of land most highly devoted to public houses in the world, although there are unsubtantiated claims that an England-themed bar in Las Vegas reaches over 108.4%.

Coincidentally, the Turf also holds the world record for lowest density of churches, at less than 3.543 churches per square kilometre (9.176 per square mile).

Fastest computer
The computer of the starship Enterprise NCC 1701-D was once recorded by a speed trap travelling at at least warp factor 10.182.

Best joke
After decades of painstaking historical detective work, psychological experiments and computer simulation, the funniest ever joke was discovered to be: [Freidrichs et. al.; Nature 382 791-793 (1996)]

'A man walked into a bar and said, "Ouch!" because it was an iron bar.'

Greatest disappointment
A scientific paper by Freidrichs, Heffer and Brown [Nature 382 791-793 (1996)] was voted the greatest disappointment ever in a poll of thousands of scientists [Blair and Fowler; Science 274 1830 (1996)].

Stupidest scientific paper
A paper by Blair and Fowler [Science 274 1830 (1996)] was found to be the most stupid ever published, following exhaustive data analysis by Heffer, Freidrichs and Brown [Nature 387 331-335 (1997)].

[Paul Beardsley]

Best joke
After decades of painstaking historical detective work, psychological experiments and computer simulation, the funniest ever joke was discovered to be: [Freidrichs et. al.; Nature 382 791-793 (1996)]

'A man walked into a bar and said, "Ouch!" because it was an iron bar.'

I've got to disagree with that one.

As an independent researcher, using the ZX Spectrum I purchased in 1984, I have worked out that the best joke ever is,

Waiter: "How did you find your steak, sir?"
Customer: "Why, I just moved this mashed potato to one side, and there it was!"

Incidentally, whilst suffering from a fever a few years ago, I had a go at multiplying this joke by the square root of minus one. This is what I got:

Waiter: "How did you find your steak, sir?"
Customer: "Why, I just opened the door of this grandfather clock, and there it was, nailed to the pendulum!"

[Maksutov]

Originally Posted by Weird Dave
Best joke
After decades of painstaking historical detective work, psychological experiments and computer simulation, the funniest ever joke was discovered to be: [Freidrichs et. al.; Nature 382 791-793 (1996)]

'A man walked into a bar and said, "Ouch!" because it was an iron bar.'

I've got to disagree with that one.

As an independent researcher, using the ZX Spectrum I purchased in 1984, I have worked out that the best joke ever is,

Waiter: "How did you find your steak, sir?"
Customer: "Why, I just moved this mashed potato to one side, and there it was!"

Incidentally, whilst suffering from a fever a few years ago, I had a go at multiplying this joke by the square root of minus one. This is what I got:

Waiter: "How did you find your steak, sir?"
Customer: "Why, I just opened the door of this grandfather clock, and there it was, nailed to the pendulum!"

Nah.

As anyone who's frequented the Borscht Belt in the Catskills will tell you, it's

Diner: Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup!?!

Waiter: The backstroke?

[HenrikOlsen]

The shortest paper on the ancient use of the letter S, cited in it's entirety here:

'Treatife on ye Exceedingly Filly Namef of ye Phlegmingf and Balloonf' ſhould have been 'Treatiſe on ye Exceedingly Silly Names of ye Phlegmings and Balloons'

The long s(ſ) was only uſed when not at the end of a word, with a ſhort s at the end, and in this caſe there's alſo a capital S which haſn't a long form.

[mike alexander]

See what happens when I let Microsoft Word do an Elizabethan(I) spell check?

Besides, I have to use the long form for my taxes, why not my spelling?
(Previous sentence may make absolutely no sense to nonAmericans, my apologies)

Gillian, I didn't know about Drake/Drak; pretty cool. I have read some of his letters, though.

[Gillianren]

Gillian, I didn't know about Drake/Drak; pretty cool. I have read some of his letters, though.

I forget where I read that; I read an awful lot about the era. It was about standardized spelling, I think. In every single document signed by Shakespeare that we have, as another example, "Shakespeare" is spelled a different way. Not one of them is "Shakespeare."

Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction.

[mike alexander]

Also:

"Waiter! There's a fly in my soup!"

"SHHH! Everybody will want one."

[mike alexander]

LEAST CONSEQUENTIAL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY
Eratosthenes' father, Eratosthehips, found that when the sun was straight up at noon in Alexandria, Egypt, it was already over the yardarm in Greece, making him the discoverer of the Happy Hour. While this had no effect on science at all, he became the patron saint of taverns for his investigations.

[Maksutov]

LEAST CONSEQUENTIAL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY
Eratosthenes' father, Eratosthehips, found that when the sun was straight up at noon in Alexandria, Egypt, it was already over the yardarm in Greece, making him the discoverer of the Happy Hour. While this had no effect on science at all, he became the patron saint of taverns for his investigations.

May you be condemned to Shinbone Alley for such remarks, you should be so lucky!

[Nicolas]

Incidentally, of everybody else's contributions, my favourite is the one about the tree that reached 99.7% of its full height before being struck by lightning.

No surprise, it was just a remix of your most overmassive moon and largest medium-sized cake .

[Paul Beardsley]

No surprise, it was just a remix of your most overmassive moon and largest medium-sized cake .

But you made it your own!

[Nicolas]

steal, adapt, improve

[Paul Beardsley]

World’s stickiest thread.
The stickiest thread in the world is the Rules For Posting To This Board thread in the Bad Astronomy Universe Today Forum. First established at 12.18 AM on 25 September 2005, it failed to garner a single response in over a year and a half.

Stickiness is defined as “that quality or condition of adhesiveness caused by molecular bonding or other form of stickiness”. The SI unit of stickiness is the Warm Toffee Apple (symbol: Wta). It replaces the old Imperial unit which was the Chewing Gum Found On Your Shoe (symbol: Ugh), although the latter is still favoured in most US states.

World’s baldest dog owner.
The owner of the world’s baldest dog is Joseph Sact of Penelope Street in Ontario. The dog, a cairn terrier, went bald at the age of 3 (human equivalent 21) following an incident involving a collapsing shelf. (The causal link, if any, between the collapse of the shelf and the subsequent unhirsuteness of the dog, is unknown.) “We called him Kojak after that!” Sact informed us.

The world’s baldest owner of a dog is Doctor Christopher Kent of Labrador. Kent, 63 (dog equivalent 9), was nick-named Kojak when his hair fell out shortly after the purchase of a black labrador. “I’d heard labradors were inclined to shed, but I think I got a head start!” quipped Kent.

The baldest part of the world is the region of Dogowner in the Amazon basin, following extensive deforestation. The region, which has since been nicknamed Kojak, attracted media attention in 1969 when the misguided inhabitants started sending hate mail to DeForest Kelley, the actor who played “Bones” McCoy on Star Trek.

[Swift]

World's Worst Post to the "Amazing Untrue Records" thread
uh, well, ah...... what should I type?

[Mister Earl]

Fastest computer
The computer of the starship Enterprise NCC 1701-D was once recorded by a speed trap travelling at at least warp factor 10.182.

Winner!

[mike alexander]

THE MOST INCONSEQUENTIAL BATTLE IN HISTORY
In 735 Athelstan the Depressed, King of the Angles, brought his forces up to face those of Edward, the Puce Prince, at Gidding’s Fallowfield, a mile north of the small town of Ham-on-Rye in East Northumbria, to settle the question of whether Euclid’s Fifth Postulate was necessary for a complete and self-consistent description of geometry.

The followers of Edward held that if two lines are drawn which intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough, holding that it could not be proven as a theorem and was hence unnecessary. Calling themselves the ‘Absolutists’ they challenged Athelstan to show that the 29th Proposition (invoking the name of ‘Parallelists’ for Athelstan’s followers) did not necessarily hold in all possible geometries.

Drawing up on a small saddle-shaped hill, Athelstan deployed his forces in two lines, which visibly diverged from parallel due to the local curvature of the terrain. Edward’s men assembled on the plain below in two demonstrably parallel lines. At this point the Venerable Bede paused in his writing of the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in the monastery at Wearmouth and traveled to the scene of the incipient battle, where he brought Athelstan and Edward to a meeting point between the opposing forces and demonstrated that the parallel postulate held only in a plane coordinate system and was correct only in the limit of zero spatial curvature. By showing that there were three possible self-consistent geometries depending solely upon whether the space possessed positive, zero or negative curvature, Bede solved nothing of interest and angered both Athelstan and Edward, who looked at each other, nodded, then simultaneously skewered Bede with their swords from opposite sides, resulting in two wounds which appeared parallel.

Unable to decide whether the wounds would have eventually met if Bede had been fat enough, Athelstan and Edward agreed to a Truce of God to extend to Michelmas and returned home with their armies, where each was poisoned by an agent of the other on the same day, June 18th, 735.

[Paul Beardsley]

Most Inside-Out Sock.
The maximum extent to which a domestic sock has been inside-out is 100%. It was worn by Malcolm Coincidence when he was attending a job interview at Hampton Court. “It really was completely inside out!” said HR manager Victoria Cable. “It had seams and everything, so it wasn’t the sort you could get away with.”

Coincidence was turned down for the post of Maze Topiarist, despite poor competition from the other candidates. When he requested feedback following his unsuccessful application, they informed him that he was turned down because his sock was inside-out.

Widest Pencil.
The widest pencil ever made, an HB, was purchased by Sonia Davies of Cleveland in 1981.

To cut a long story short, it was ludicrously wide and totally impractical for drawing or anything.

Most Orange Orange.
In 1981, in an orangery in Seville, an orange was harvested with pigmentation wavelength of exactly 6200 Angstrom.

The orange was kept in a bowl for two days before it was peeled and eaten by Marcia Quixote, an 84 year old (dog equivalent age 12) grandmother of three.

Most Boring Dream-Account.
This is the single most hotly-contested record, and consequently is a record in its own right. Nevertheless, prior to 1981, the consensus was that H.P. Lovecraft's Randoph Carter stories were the prime contenders. Good grief, did they drivel on?

The new champion is Melissa Curtin, following her fifteen hour account of her reverie during a Saturday afternoon catnap. Her dream was a disjointed narrative in which her ex-boyfriend suddenly turned into David Bowie, and then they were on this desert island, only it had a road and a supermarket, and that bloke from ER turned up, and so on. But it is the number of iterations of "and you know, it was really weird" and "do you think it all means something?" that gives Ms Curtin's account its edge.

Most Unsuccessful Performance of the Heimlich Maneuver.
In 1981, Vincent Paisley killed his flatmate Steve when he attempted the aforementioned treatment, not realising Steve was merely gargling mouthwash. "I'd seen it done on TV, like," he said, "and didn't realise you need to be trained to do it properly. Still, no harm done, eh? What? Why are you looking at me like that? You don't mean... Steve? Steve! My God, what have I done?"

[mike alexander]

I love this. I put my story in England, where Paul is from, he puts a story in Cleveland, where I am from.

[mike alexander]

STRANGEST ADVICE GIVEN BY A MOTHER THAT TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE
Jared Wimshurst of Marietta, Ohio, kept refusing to eat his stringbeans until his mother, Wilma Wimshurst (nee Wilma Van de Graff) told him "There are starving children in India who would give their eye teeth for those." Thus challenged, Jared placed the beans in a box, addressed it to "Starving Children, India, UK" and mailed it book rate to the subcontinent.

Just three months later Jared recieved a box in the post. When he opened it he found a letter saying:
"Honored Jared of Ohio.
Trimurti's blessings on you! The stringbeans you sent have saved our lives, as we were starving. In addition, the (traditional?) American fur coating on the beans lent them a piquiant, musky flavor unlike any bean we have ever tasted.
As we have no money, please accept the eleven enclosed eye teeth in payment for your marvelous gift. We would have sent more, but the rest went to Honored Peter of Indiana for a similar act of largesse last year."

Jared showed the letter and teeth to his mother, who told him that if he put them under his pillow the Tooth Fairy just might visit him that night. And he should also keep his shoulders straight, not scuff his shoes, and put on a clean pair of underwear just in case he was in an accident.

[Nicolas]

dog equivalent age

*dries off a tear*

Most Unsuccessful Performance of the Heimlich Maneuver.

*LOLs out of chair before even reading the story*



This thread is sooo nice!

[mike alexander]

STRANGEST ALIEN VISITATION THAT EVER OCCURRED IN AMERICA
Stepping through a hyperspatial portal onto Muscle Beach, California, a group of six aliens from the fourth planet of the star Nu Pegasi arranged themselves in formal order and delivered a message of impending conquest to the beachgoers there.

The scantily clad and heavily muscled creatures’ message should have inspired awe and fear, but since they were all mute the address was given in their own sign language, which closely resembled a posing routine in a Mr. America contest. They were immediately surrounded by a bevy of bikini-clad lasses who giggled and ran their hands over the aliens’ well-developed torsos.

Unfortunately, such a response is a deadly insult in the aliens’ language. Combining their amazing mental powers, they sent out a telepathic blast that immediately lowered the intelligence quotient of the inhabitants of California by almost fifty.

Fortunately, it was California, and no major undue effects were noted.

[mike alexander]

LOUDEST BACKFIRE EVER PRODUCED BY STUFFING A POTATO INTO A CAR’S EXHAUST PIPE
The loudest backfire ever produced as a result of blocking an automobile’s tailpipe with an ordinary Burbank Russet potato was measured at 113 decibels. As a side effect, it was discovered that the pressure wave produced an exceptionally soft and tender spud, which was made into a perfect single-serving of mashed potatoes by the addition of two large pats of butter and a quarter cup of Half n’ Half.

WORST EXAMPLE OF PERFORMING USING AN IMAGINARY DEVICE
Malcom Tent of Steubenville, Ohio, entertained his friends by standing on the catwalk of the local 100 foot high water tower and performing ‘Benny and the Jets’ using only his voice and an air guitar. He then concluded the performance by leaping off the catwalk, connected to the top of the tower by an air bungee cord.

WORST FUSION RECIPE EVER PRESENTED
Despite cajoling and offers of cash, not one person at the ‘Taste of Chicago’ culinary exposition could be induced to try the tandoori gefilte fish. No one would eat the traditional gefilte fish, for that matter. Despite being told there are children starving in India who would give their eye teeth for it.

LONGEST MATHEMATICAL PROOF
The exact numerical value of e divided by pi is still being calculated.

RECORD RESCINDED
The record awarded to Gregory Maestlyn of West Eastersouth, Knockneede, Kent, for claiming to understand every lyric Elton John has ever sung has been stricken since it was learned he was actually listening to Niel Diamond. Sir John has since admitted that he doesn’t have actual lyrics to any of his songs, but just sings the fine print on the backs of any medicine bottles that happen to be around, resulting in such hits as ‘Benny and the Adverse Events’.

[mike alexander]

SCIENTIFIC TERM THAT SOUNDS MOST LIKE THE TITLE OF A HARLEQUIN ROMANCE NOVEL
“Forbidden Transitions”. This novel was actually written by English author Paul Beardsley, under the pen name Mike Alexander.

LONGEST GERMAN WORD
The longest known German word starts with ‘Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenüber tragungsgesetz…’, but the word itself is transcendental. So far over 1.4 X 10^11 sequential letters have been determined with no appearance of significant repeating sequences.
As an interesting mathematico/philological footnote, when this word is divided by pi the result is a five letter French word referring to excrement.

MOST QUICKLY REMAINDERED BOOK EVER PUBLISHED
“Forbidden Transitions”, written by English author Paul Beardsley, under the pen name Mike Alexander. The entire printing was actually shipped directly from the printer to the remainder shops, where the front covers were immediately torn off so they could be sent along to various church rummage sales.

[Nicolas]

Least democratic mayor

The world's least democratic mayor is the major of Ile d'Elise, France. The major is known by the name of Martin Shepburn and lives in a trailer in Newcastle, England. He became mayor of Ile d'Elise by giving himself this function and notifying the local government of Ile d'Elise through e-mail of his action. He was forced to send the e-mail at gunpoint by his nephew.

The second least democratic mayor is René LeCompte, former mayor of Ile d'Elise, France. LeCompte, farmer and owner of 68 obese cats, became mayor after successfully lobbying for feline voting rights in the village. The bill was passed only after the revision which included the attachment to exclude bipedal creatures from voting rights. René LeCompte lost the record of least democratic mayor when the story leaked that he had a severe multiple personalities disorder, thereby making the psyches not having the function of mayor a minority in the village.

[mike alexander]

MOST MISUNDERSTOOD SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY
Dr. Wynn Dixie of Stanford University discovered the gene controlling obesity in humans. Announcing his breakthrough, he said that “From now on, there is no excuse for anyone not to be obese.”

MOST UNNECESSARY ACCOUTREMENT
The Personal Spoon Sharpener, invented by Mr. Ronald Popeil, who said that “From now on, there is no excuse for anyone not to have a sharp spoon.”

MOST MISLEADING NAME FOR A POLITICAL PARTY
In a close contest, ‘Democratic’ and ‘Republican’ placed third and second, respectively. First place went to the Women’s Natural Birthing Party of Britain, which calls itself ‘Labor’.

THE J D POWER AWARD TO THE AUTOMOBILE THAT HAS TO COMPARE ITSELF TO SIX OR SEVEN OTHER MODELS TO FIND AT LEAST ONE THING IT IS BETTER THAN
“More back seat room than a Porsche 910; longer wheelbase than a Mini Cooper; more horsepower than a Volkswagen SuperBeetle…”

INDIVIDUAL WHO CANNOT REMEMBER THE NAMES FOR MORE COMMON OBJECTS THAN ANYONE ELSE
Mr. Pierce Zweiback of Apple Creek, Ohio, has used more complete descriptions of a given common object instead the object’s actual name than anyone else known. He is famous for “That thing with a handle where you pull a rope and it makes a lot of noise to cut the grass” for “Lawnmower”, “That part on the chicken where the foot used to be and is kinda bulgy where it hooks to the body” for “Drumstick” and “That thing where if you’re not careful it gets caught in your zipper and hurts like the blazes” for “Politician”.

[HenrikOlsen]

Most consecutive posthumous terms in office
Edgar Standish of Lower Upton died the day after becoming mayor and as the village didn't have the funds to run a new election immediately they let him hold the post until the next election.
As the voters looked back on his record for the previous term they noted his perfect score of: Funds embezzled: none; Sex scandals: none; Wars lost: none and promptly reelected him.
This was in 1867 and he's won every election since.

[Nicolas]

...making him runner-up in the most democratic (late) Mayor category as well .

[mike alexander]

AIRLINE SETS RECORD FOR FASTEST LOSS OF LUGGAGE
Southeast Airlines reclaimed the title for fastest loss of a passenger’s luggage when two checked suitcases and a bag of golf clubs went missing between the check-in counter and the conveyor belt immediately behind the counter at Los Angeles Airport. The luggage turned up in Frankfurt the day before, prompting an airline spokesperson to speculate that the International Date Line was involved. The passenger whose luggage was lost arrived in Bali two days previously and was arrested because her ticket showed she should have been on a flight that hadn’t left yet, and her lack of luggage was highly suspicious.


WORLD’S TALLEST DWARF
Lester Doyle of Wooster, Ohio, is the world’s tallest dwarf. At 5’7” (0.00260583 leagues) he is one foot shorter than his mother Amanda Doyle and over 16” shorter than his father, Patrick Doyle. He attributes his relatively diminutive stature to his mother’s habit of forgetting to feed him as a child, thus stunting his growth.


LONGEST TIME SPENT WITH TONGUE STUCK TO A LAMP POST
William B. Farquhar spent almost one week standing at the corner of Oak St. and Pine Ave. in Sandusky, Ohio with his tongue stuck to the aluminum lamp post there as part of a bet with his friends. “They all dared me to touch my tongue to the post and if it stuck they would each give me a dollar for every day I was stuck there,” the nine year old said.
Since it was July, Farquhar used a liberal dollop of cyanoacrylate (‘crazy’) glue to enhance the adhesion of his tongue to the post. “It really worked very well, and by the end of the week I made almost fifty dollars,” he said.
His parents were proud that he had set the new record. “Frankly, I never thought he would amount to anything,” Doris Farquhar said. “But look at him now. But not too closely, that big chunk of missing tongue can be really gross.”


PROCTOLOGIST REGISTERS 10,000TH BAD COLONOSCOPY JOKE
Dr. Sigmund Colon’ has recorded his 10,000th bad joke from patients undergoing intensive intestinal investigation. “They’re all bad,” he said, “From the inane ‘Find anything?’ or ‘What a bum rap’ to complaints of a sore throat afterwards. I’ve heard them all.”
Number 10,000 was delivered by DuPaige Wentworth of Euclid, Ohio, who asked Dr. Colon’ how many channels he could get on that cable.