Originally posted by DA Morgan:
Not a conscious effort on your part ... that wasn't what I meant. But anyone that says this was once a common belief is ... it was not ... that is just urban legend.
I see nothing wrong with the dictionary definition other than the fact that it requires those that are incorrect to be willing to step up and acknowledge it. Something sorely lacking in most here at SAGG.
you really should study history, at least read a book about it, before making statements. it was not an urban myth, it was what everyone believed was a fact.
urban legend
Function: noun
: an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true <the urban legend of alligators living in the sewers> -- called also urban myth (
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/urban%20myth)
note that this says 'widely'. i forget who was the first one to notice that two wells dug straight down, in two latitude, had different angles of sunlight. I do know that his theory that the earth was round was not accepted at the time. this does not meet the cryteira of urban legend. it meet the cryteria of accepted facts. accepted facts change when evidents that they are wrong comes. urban myth's ignore the facts. aligators in the sewers has been proven to be an urban myth, with no evidence to back it up, yet it remains. the accepted fact of a flat earth was changed when the scientist of the day disproved it.
