British people no longer have the right to tell you whats real: study.

[Paladin_Hammer]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204...historyoffbeat


Any Brits here? What the hell guys? Seriously?

[polobunny]

What!!! Sherlock Holmes... I believed it!

[J]

Wow...

I'm a bit shocked to read that... when you are not able to recognize icons representative of your history/nation, something is really fucked up. Especially THAT fact about Sherlock Holmes.

I know who the nurse Nightingale was because I did read about her a long time ago...

I know that some of the members here are from G.B. and hey know about the history of their country, so I think that the study may have been done in a way to obtain these results intentionally or made up BS...

[Mistral]

Alright, now how many of those people were just messing with the reporter? I mean, Churchill? Stormed the cliffs of Gallipoli with nothing but a knife clenched between his teeth? Stopped the Luftwaffe with a BBC radio tower, a ball of twine, and a waffle iron? Definitely didn't exist.

Since when were there cliffs at Gallipoli?

[Ahkei]

Wow...

I'm a bit shocked to read that... when you are not able to recognize icons representative of your history/nation, something is really fucked up. Especially THAT fact about Sherlock Holmes.

Times are changing, really. It's happening everywhere.

[joelralph23]

It was kind of shocking until I noticed the last part

"UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people"

3,000 people out of a country of 60 million is hardly a worthwhile source.

[Dr Mario]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204...historyoffbeat


Any Brits here? What the hell guys? Seriously?

Britain, like most of the commonwealth states, has elevated taking the piss to an art form. This is no exception.

[polobunny]

Britain, like most of the commonwealth states, has elevated taking the piss to an art form. This is no exception.

Does this actually mean people could pay to see me pissing, if I was in UK? Because that would be kinda neat, i'm having some financial difficulties lately...

[Elin]

It was kind of shocking until I noticed the last part

"UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people"

3,000 people out of a country of 60 million is hardly a worthwhile source.

Yeah, this. Besides which, there's the fact that plenty of people would just mess with the results for fun, as Culise and Hypnos pointed out. Heck I'd be tempted myself. Besides, even assuming that it is a completely valid study, the fact is that many people are just...dense, no matter where you go. It's not limited to any one country. ^_~ I'm sure there'd be plenty of people in the US who'd tell you some strange things about Lincoln or Kennedy. Polling 3000 of our stupidest citizens and trying to make a statement about us as a whole based on the results is just a little bit silly.

And considering that Jade Goody, a Big Brother contestant, was almost universally mocked here for thinking that Sherlock Holmes was real, I think it's fair to say that the notion that the British public can't tell the difference between fact and fiction on that one, at least, is a bit of a fallacy. ^_~

[polobunny]

Yeah, this. Besides which, there's the fact that plenty of people would just mess with the results for fun, as Culise and Hypnos pointed out. Heck I'd be tempted myself. Besides, even assuming that it is a completely valid study, the fact is that many people are just...dense, no matter where you go. It's not limited to any one country. ^_~ I'm sure there'd be plenty of people in the US who'd tell you some strange things about Lincoln or Kennedy. Polling 3000 of our stupidest citizens and trying to make a statement about us as a whole based on the results is just a little bit silly.

And considering that Jade Goody, a Big Brother contestant, was almost universally mocked here for thinking that Sherlock Holmes was real, I think it's fair to say that the notion that the British public can't tell the difference between fact and fiction on that one, at least, is a bit of a fallacy. ^_~

Talking about Lousiana or something?

I was discussing that the other day with some friends. We got into a heated debate about how most surveys were improperly done, and more than half of the people were against my view on this. Most often than not it seems like the survey is not done correctly because 1) the sample is too small 2) the sample is not varied enough. There's also that slight, slight chance that sometimes is not so negligible that people don't answer the truth, may it be because of the subject (a non-anonymous sexual taboo subject survey that people have to answer aloud has strong chances of being flawed).
However, most people don't seem to bother reading those fineprints about the sample or how the survey was conducted, they'll just believe the powerpoint charts they'll see in the newspaper.

Anyway, at the end of the discussion (when I decided to give up convincing them that most surveys were likely not done properly, since the original subject of the discussion wasn't even about this but the US economy (yes I know, we have fun drinking night topics! (crazy uh, double... triple parenthesis now!))) people were looking at me like I was some kind of moron.



Is it true though? Sherlock Holmes... my kid dreams... I feel nauseated... I need to sit down for a moment...

[Cosmic]

Polling 3000 UKTV Gold viewers is never a good idea.

[polobunny]

Polling 3000 UKTV Gold viewers is never a good idea.

As if polling anyone from UK was a good idea.
OH you crazy Brits!

[Cookie Monster]

I don't care, brits are cool anyways.

[Raype]

I hear if you leave a nazi skull under your pillow churchill shows up and gives you money for it.

[Josh]

It's all a conspiracy. There was no WWII. The government just paid off millions of people to say that it happened.

I have also visited Hogwarts and hung out with Harry Potter. He is real.