this is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness (10. 275)

Via the always engrossing Web Curios, we find ourselves directed down a rabbit hole that is anything but a listicle in this collection of fallacies and factoids that make up Wikipedia’s (multilingual) muster of common misconceptions. We’ve covered some folk etymologies, like the pretence of “ye olde pub,” our that X-Mas wasn’t an assault on Jesus, but the supposed four-letter initialism formed from the phrase (also not true) “fornicating under the consent of the king” was a new one to us. Another misconception dealt with the radio-listening public’s response to Orson Welles’ 1938 adaptation of H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds, with not a wide audience share tuned in, newspapers elaborated isolated incidents of panic to undermine its competitor as a medium for advertising. Contrite at first, the broadcaster, CBS, later came to embrace and perpetuate the myth. There’s a non-exhaustive though quite comprehensive list of falsehoods and biases to be disabused of to be found at the links above.