Context is for the weak

[james_davis_nicoll]

Even I know the difference between Stephen Douglas and Frederick Douglass.

Somewhere a Fox news editor's history teacher is weeping.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I will admit I've confused Lake Agassiz with Lake Missoula.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And it took me forever to understand that rivers can be long lived but lakes often are not.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I get the post-glaciation lakes mixed up. I consider this partly a failing of the people who named them and partly a failure of my own knowledge of geography. And since they don't exist any more, as such, contemporary knowledge doesn't help much, does it... Nonetheless, if they'd called Agassiz "Lake Manitoba" or similar, it would be a lot clearer.

Louis Agassiz was kind of a creep, anyway. A Cambridge, Mass., school that had been named after him was recently renamed, because of his (now Wrong-Wrong-Wrong, then acceptable) racist beliefs.

[avram]

I've confused Lerner and Loewe with Leopold and Loeb.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Not quite the same, are they. Though I'm sure someone's already done a musical about the latter two.