The Dictionary of Misinformation

Filled with little known facts, all in alphabetical order. Perfect for any trivia lover of shameless know-it-all.

There's nothing illegal about defacing a US coin. The idea of evolution was not first proposed by Darwin. Cinderella's slipper is glass only due to an error in translation. Black-eyed peas are actually beans. SOS doesn't stand for anything; it's just distinctive in Morse code. Pages upon pages of this kind of thing... It's a must for the bookshelf of all Cliff Clavin wannabes. For the rest of us, it can be fun to flip through, though it will be apparent to many that a revised edition could be cobbled together quite easily to incorporate the vast amounts of misinformation in society today. This book was originally published in 1975 and even this more recent 1986 edition shows its age. The Web has brought more misinformation to the masses than can possibly have been imagined in 1975. Someone's gotta make a website version of this to keep up!

Pick this book up at a library if you can find it. Well written and informative -- however, the book is showing its age. It would be nice to see an update of all the current misinformation out there.

This is the best single book that has ever been printed. By opening up the book for about thirty seconds each night I have been able to "Astonish my friends and annoy my enemies," exactly as it is stated on the cover of this book. This book it priceless, I of course only paid 9 cents for my copy, but after reading it I found that I had just made the best buy of my 14 year life!!!

I enjoy thumbing through this book or actually trying to find a "common knowledge fact" and the true story behind it. Some of the entries are quotes that have been misquoted for decades, while others are simply interesting facts (the black-eyed pea is not a pea, but a bean). The book is about 30 years old now, so some of the topics may be categorized with the more modern term, "urban legend". A very interesting book if you can find it.