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Selected Excerpts from The Pedant's Revolt The modern age has long been awash with facts and figures relating to a wealth of different subjects, but how many of these snippets of information are accurate? Which examples of trivia can be proven to be nothing more than falsehoods or fabrications? This intriguing book sets the record straight by exposing a great many erroneous facts that have become entrenched in everyday thought. For example, if you've ever been led to believe that coffee sobers up a drunk then you’re mistaken; the caffeine in coffee can only transform a sleepy drunk into a wide awake drunk. If you were ever convinced that owls are capable of turning their heads a full 360 degrees, you've been misled; though it’s true that owls have considerable ability when it comes to turning their heads, they aren't able to rotate them through more than 270 degrees. As for the belief that Harpo Marx was mute in real life as he was in his stage persona, on the contrary; he was perfectly capable of speaking, but after a bad review about his vocal abilities he decided to stop talking while in character. So, for those who have been the victim of misinformation in such matters, prepare to be amused and amazed by the facts and disabused of the fiction. Covering a wide range of diverse topics, from history to science, the arts, the animal kingdom, medicine, the human body, food and drink, and presenting its well-researched facts in a highly accessible and entertaining manner, The Pedant's Revolt is guaranteed to inform the misinformed and enlightened a confused. From Chapter 13 Historical Figures Abraham Lincoln was an abolitionist While it is true that in 1840s America there were people who believed that slavery was a shameful violation of human rights that should be abolished immediately, historian James M. McPherson reveals that Abraham Lincoln wasn't one of them. In Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson quotes  Lincoln as saying that ‘“the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase rather than to abate its evils” by uniting the South in defence of the institution’. Indeed, on an 1864 campaign poster printed in Henry Steele Commager’s American Civil War, Lincoln is quoted as saying: ‘My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy Slavery.’ Former presidential speechwriter and political lecturer James C. Humes confirms this fact in The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: ‘Even when he [Lincoln] became a Republican he was no abolitionist, even though he accepted abolitionists’ support.’ During a debate in 1858, Lincoln said of men of black slaves: ‘He is not my equal in many respects – certainly not in colour, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of . . . every living man.’ Perhaps Lincoln believed racial integration was unfeasible in the mid-nineteenth century or, as a wily politician, he may have been presenting a ‘moderate’ as opposed to ‘radical’ position to win votes. Indeed, his 1863 Gettysburg Address echoed the 1776 Declaration of Independence with his reference to ‘all men are created equal’, and in his support for the notion of ‘government of the people . . . by the people . . . for the people shall not perish from this earth’. Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Lincoln Reconsidered, David Herbert Donald, came to the conclusion that while Lincoln believed that ‘slavery was a moral wrong’ which he was ‘not sure how to right’, it was also clear that the US president was certainly ‘not an abolitionist’. From Chapter 16 Mammals Pigs are sweaty animals, hence the saying ‘to sweat like a pig’ Anthropologist and author of the unusually titled Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: the Riddles of Culture, Marvin Harris knowledgeably informs us that ‘pigs can’t sweat’. In fact, according to Harris, the sweatiest of all mammals are human beings! If a pig is exposed to direct sunlight and air temperatures of more than 98° F, it has to ‘dampen its skin with external moisture’, and generally prefers to do this by ‘wallowing in fresh clean mud’. Pet-pig expert Priscilla Valentine explains in Potbellied Pig Behaviour and Training that ‘the pig has virtually no sweat glands to keep him cool. The mud acts as a natural skin conditioner . . . and as a bug repellent and sunscreen.'  The late Victorians were the first to exclaim ‘I’m sweating like a pig!’ An equally popular expression of the day was ‘I'm sweating like a bull,’ according to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang. The Victorians were half right as cattle do sweat, but pigs, which originate from shadier climes, do not. Unfortunately for the reputation of the blameless pig, it is the former expression that has endured. Fallacies not in Pedant: Orange juice is a natural laxative  Some fruit juices do have a laxative effect. Dr. Carlos Lifschitz states: ‘Most children experience some stomach cramping, gas and even mild diarrhea after consuming too much juice containing sorbitol.’ This is because sorbitol is a natural laxative sugar.  However, according to Dr. Steven P. Shelov, pineapple, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and orange juice contain ‘no sorbitol’.  Shelov tells us that prune juice has the highest sorbitol content with 12.7%. Next is pear with 2.1%. Sweet cherry has 1.4%, peach has 0.9%. Apple comes in low with 0.5%. Grape contains a trace. As for avoiding fruit juice stomach upsets, nutritionist Jean Carper advises: ‘The safest juice – least likely to cause chronic diarrhoea in an infant or toddler - is orange juice.’ Whole oranges can have a laxative effect but it’s the fibrous flesh rather than the juice which is responsible for this effect. Source: Dr. Carlos Lifschitz, Paediatric Gastroenterologist, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, U.S.A. Steven P. Shelov and others, Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, (Bantam, 2004.) Jean Carper, Food - Your Miracle Medicine, (Perennial, 1994).

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