The Pedant's Return: Why the Things You Think Are Wrong Are Right

In 2006's The Pedant's Revolt, Barham focused on the false information and bad advice in well-known folk wisdom (""starve a cold,"" one human year equals seven dog years, etc.), but in this follow-up she takes the opposite tack, examining old wives' tales and famously outlandish anecdotes that are actually true. She tackles literature, nature, food, history, medicine and famous figures, among other topics, putting the facts to stories like Virginia Woolf's affinity for writing while standing up (in emulation of her older sister, a painter). Other stories, like the origin of Saint Nicolas's gift-giving tradition, get shocking makeovers: as it turns out, the jolly fat man began his career by buying children out of prostitution. Surprisingly true legends also include the skin-coloring effects of eating too many carrots, the absence of the resurrection in the original version of Saint Mark's gospel and the fact that the ""S"" in Harry S. Truman doesn't stand for anything. Imminently browsable, this volume should provide the trivially inclined with lots of fun (and perhaps some late nights worrying, for instance, about bugs living in one's inner ear).