Piano factoids

[Bill Ballard]

At 9:42 PM -0500 8/21/02, Alan R. Barnard wrote:
>Here's one, maybe:
>
>The principle building materials for the Wright Bros. first successful
>airplane were: wood, canvas, and piano wire.

  My Webster's definition of the suffix "...oid" is "something 
resembling a specified object". A factoid is something which 
resembles a fact but actually is something other. Factoids breed in 
the media, where they are passed about readily because they seem so 
clearly (without checking) to be be facts.

I'm sure that the principle building materials were wood, canvas and 
piano wire, but the piece of information really a factoid?

I apologize for this outburst, but I had a fourth grade teacher who 
drilled me severely. <g>

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

".......true more in general than specifically"
     ...........Lenny Bruce, spoofing a radio discussion of the Hebrew 
roots of Calypso music
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