I am going to consider this a success story, given that you were transparent about the provenance of this factoid, and you corrected yourself. Yay for learning!
Yes, I did delight in getting to accurately use the word “factoid”; it’s useful for working through the trauma of learning that “factoid” doesn’t just mean a neat tidbit of fun facts, but rather quite the opposite. And for a “learning is fun” kind of gal like me, misinformation masked as genuine learning is deeply unfun — that is, unless we make the factoid itself our new object of study.
I am going to consider this a success story, given that you were transparent about the provenance of this factoid, and you corrected yourself. Yay for learning!
In fact it’s the most factoid it could be, an outright falsehood shared as a fact.
Yes, I did delight in getting to accurately use the word “factoid”; it’s useful for working through the trauma of learning that “factoid” doesn’t just mean a neat tidbit of fun facts, but rather quite the opposite. And for a “learning is fun” kind of gal like me, misinformation masked as genuine learning is deeply unfun — that is, unless we make the factoid itself our new object of study.
The system works!
This is about as good of an outcome as any can hope for in a “long” comment chain on the internet.
we did itYeah, the returns really become increasingly marginal the longer a comment chain goes on. ^(I think I’m committed to the bit though)
I hadn’t ever thought to look it up over the last 10-12 years! Imagine that.