Discussion Main / ConvictionByCounterFactualClue

I hope this is okay here, but the example with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's 'Heart of Stone' and 'His Way', may be iffy, but I watched the two episodes on the same day, 'His Way' first, and it was HILARIOUS.

I'm not going to change it as I don't want to be That Pedant, but I will go so far as to note it here. "Wrong" is meant to denote that something is morally terrible, as when The Tick refused to eat a kitten because "That's just WRONG!!" When questioning the validity of something, "incorrect" is the proper word.

People have used the words interchangeably in regular speech long enough that most dictionaries will include both usages, and ending a statement by saying that something is WRONG has much more of a satisfying punch to it. But since the trope is all about validity, the extensive use of "wrong" in the description is just... plain... well, you see where I'm going.

Again, not calling for it to be changed, just wanted to poke a little fun and see whether anyone else had made any mention. Maybe we should lampshade it at the bottom of the page.

I think we should change the existing page image. That "girl" who supposedly now knows the barber's name is a non-living statue.

Why is "no woman throwing out the receipts of clothing they JUST bought" brought up as inherently false? Clothes (except undergarments) can be taken back to the shop and swapped if it turns out there is something wrong with them that you didn't notice before purchase, but only if you still have the receipts so it's common to keep them for up to two years.

I think the picture and caption are perfect for this page. And what the heck does JAFAAC mean anyways?

Why is this listed under Fake Difficulty when there isn't even any video game examples listed?

The nth time I heard a TV detective announce that it's not suicide because the gun was found in the right hand of a left-handed victim, I said to my wife: “If I ever decide to shoot myself and frame someone....” She: “I'll remind you to use your other hand.”

As it happens, I'm more accurate with a pistol in my ‘wrong’ hand.

Would the end of Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" qualify for this? In that, the villain has left the riddle "what is the prime difference between the elements responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" Eventually, the heroes discover that these elements are Uranium-235 and Uranium-238, and the difference is the numeral 3 (a prime number, hence "prime difference"). However, in truth U-238 wasn't the main element associated with either nuclear bomb; the actual elements would be U-235 and Plutonium-239, whose difference is 4 (a number which isn't even prime, being the product of 2 and 2). Since this error of fact was key to solving a puzzle, does it go beyond Dan Browned and into Encyclopedia Browned territory?

Why was the name changed? =/

Deleted this example, because the rebuttal is faulty for several reasons.

• Yet another Holmes example: "The Musgrave Ritual". Both Holmes and the Butler make wildly invalid assumptions that only turn out accurate due to chance. First invalid assumption: That the trees mentioned in the ritual had not grown in the two hundred years between the ritual being written and their attempts to follow it. Second invalid assumption: That their paces would be the same as the original writer's paces. Holmes often estimates the height of a man by the length of his stride, so he should know that the inverse is also true: That a man's height influences the length of his stride. Holmes was fairly tall by Victorian standards, and therefore would have a noticeably longer stride than other men. Combining the shifted starting point with the inaccurate units of measurement in the later directions, there is significant room for error. Had the part of the ritual going 'And so under' actually meant 'Dig Here' as Holmes originally thought and not 'Look In The Basement', they wouldn't have come close to the treasure.

First, Oak and Elm trees don't continue to add significant height infinitely. They do add girth until they die.

An oak that was planted "at the Conquest" (1066 AD) would certainly have attained its full height by the 1700's.

An Elm that was 64 feet tall would also be at or near its maximum height, and someone writing a set of directions (intended to be used at some unknown time in the future) that relied on the height of a tree to mark a spot would have to be stupid to use a tree that wasn't already at full growth.

The other point, that "stride length varies", is also not counter-factual, since a pace can just as easily indicate the standard step of thirty inches from where the heel of one foot leaves the ground to where the heel of the other foot touches; or the double pace, (58 or 60 inches) measured from where the heel of one foot leaves the ground to where the same heel touches again. Both of these uses were already established in by the time the Ritual was written. Since it specifies "By ten and by ten" (that is, ten steps with each foot,) it's talking about the single pace. It doesn't matter what Holmes' normal stride length is, he's using the established measure called a "pace".