Dear Readers, I have been attending a wonderful online writing course for a number of years now – I’m currently working on a kind of memoir about Mum and Dad and dementia and death and all those very cheerful things. And one thing that we’re very keen on is letting one another know when we’ve ‘been thrown out’ of a piece of writing. You know the kind of thing – you’re reading the ‘story’ when suddenly there’s a change of speaker, or tone, or you don’t understand a phrase ( a regular occurrence as the rest of my classmates are American, so either I won’t understand what a Winnebago is, or they will be confused by a sentence such as ‘I reckon I could do that tomorrow’). It’s a case of two nations divided by a common language indeed (or three nations if you count Canada, which you definitely should).
Anyhow, I am reading the book in the illustration above, about the neuroscience of grief. It’s absolutely fascinating. The writer knows ridiculous amounts about how the grieving brain reacts to things because she did the first ever study that involved popping recently-bereaved people into an MRI scanner to see how their brains behaved. So far so good. She describes how we all have a kind of ‘mental map’ of how the world should be, and how when someone dies, our whole ‘map’ suddenly doesn’t work. And this is all in the first dozen pages.
And then, she describes how meerkats have a mental map of their territories. But Readers, she describes them as ‘rodents, similar to prairie dogs’.
Meerkats (Photo by Jon Pinder at https://www.flickr.com/photos/rofanator/5751217677)
How is that critter a rodent? Holy moly people, get a grip. I’ve been nipped by a meerkat (long story) and believe me, although a rodent can give you a nasty bite if cornered, these little guys are definitely carnivores, and are in fact members of the mongoose family. I was so indignant that I had to put the book down for the evening. Where is this person’s editor?
And then I wondered if it was just me. I am, in truth, in a constant state of irritation. Articles about bees have illustrations of hoverflies. Articles about bumblebees have photos of honeybees. Asian hornet articles are illustrated by photos of European hornets. Does it matter? Well, partly I’m aggravated by the sheer laziness and ignorance. But then, I read an interesting article in New Scientist a few weeks ago, where the author pointed out that there is literally no fact-checking in most popular science books, which leads to a whole shelf load of inaccuracies and actual untruths being promulgated every week. Such a shame! There is a lot of interest in scientific subjects, and readers deserve better information. A case in point was the recent book about Artificial Intelligence by Yuval Noah Harari, who is a medieval historian most famous for his book ‘Sapiens’. In the new book, ‘Nexus’, he seems to have wandered out of his zone of expertise and into a field that he knows much less about. And yet, no one seems to have pointed out the holes in his arguments (apart from in the New Scientist review, which is a humdinger).
So, when I read in a book about neuroscience that a meerkat is a rodent, I wonder what else is wrong in the text. Can I trust the writer on her field of expertise, or do I need to do some fact-checking myself? I find myself increasingly reading something and thinking ‘hmm’. Because of my Open University study, I have access to a whole world of papers and magazines, not just on science but on everything else, and it’s surprising how often it comes in useful. Most people don’t have access to such resources, though, or the time required to check things. But what I would say is, in this world of misinformation and confusion, if something feels ‘off’ it’s worth checking. For those of us in the UK, I particularly recommend the Radio Four programme ‘More or Less‘, where readers write in with a statistic that they’ve seen floating about and ask for the opinions of the statisticians and mathematicians on the programme. David Spiegelhalter’s input during the Covid-19 crisis was invaluable to me as a way of putting things in perspective and helping to explain the endless graphs and figures that were coming out at the time. He’s written a number of books too, including his latest about uncertainty, something that’s making a lot of us very nervous at the moment.
In spite of what you hear, not all opinions are created equal. Sometimes it’s worth finding an expert (or preferably several experts with differing opinions) and paying attention to what they say. And never trust someone who isn’t prepared to admit that they were wrong when new information is available. I suppose I am one of that apparently-dying breed who believes that there is such a thing as objective truth, and that a peer-reviewed paper should carry more weight than something that an ‘influencer’ believes and has put out on Tiktok. How old-fashioned of me!
So, Readers, what jolts you out of something that you’re reading? Does an inaccuracy in your area of expertise lead you to throw the book or magazine out of the window? Have you taken to writing to the Editor to complain (as it appears I have)? Do you have a pet peeve? I should probably take a few steps back now, as I know that some of my readers have strong opinions about such things (and I love them all the more for it). So have at it, Readers!
You are absolutely right: meerkats are NOT rodents. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this for I too am appalled by the number of inaccuracies (or exaggerations) that creep into news reports, documentaries and non-fiction books – all of which even a simple Google check could have avoided.
I think I’m going to start a curmudgeon’s club and we could easily be the founder members :-). But seriously, meerkats as rodents? Holy moly….
If I come across an obvious inaccuracy I am left wondering about the rest of the “facts” and ponder if I am wasting my time continuing.
The one thing that will always stop me in my tracks in a love it/ hate it sort of way is the use of a word with which I am unfamiliar or one used in an unfamiliar way. The Concise Oxford Dictionary is one of my best friends.
I quite like learning new words, but you’re right, they do often stop the ‘flow’ of a piece and I have to dig the dictionary out.
I have a treasured copy of the O.E.D. shorter version 1956 2,500 pages! It was gifted to me when one of the Toronto locations I had worked in closed down c 1975. We sometimes use it to elevate a laptop for a Zoom meeting and I usually need to look up a word meaning & history at least once a month. I have to speak to myself very sternly to stop flying off on a tangent when I do so.
We are facing the death of objective truth. There’s a terrifying feature in the FT this weekend about how the church-led state murdered women for being witches in the mid 17th century, on the testimony of 12 year old children, one of whom had his own mother executed. How could people have been so gullible, I thought, but then heard a US voter claiming on the radio that Donald Trump has been sent by God and is “all powerful”. A few years ago a colleague explained to me that her relationship with God was a personal one, which allowed her to reject certain claims and accept others. This is where we seem to be heading more generally – a world of personal truths, some of which may be defended to the death. So little progress in so many centuries!
:-(. I hope you’re not right, but I fear you might be….
Oh, gosh, you sound a lot like me!! I hate inaccuracy in writing, especially in scientific writing. It has led me to form the opinion that the general level of intelligence in British society is on a serious downswing. I am one of those people who DO have the time and inclination to fact check and search out those peer-reviewed articles (and oh, my goodness, is there a lot of dross out there!), and yes, I do complain to those responsible. Hoverflies/bees/hornet errors do wind me up, but I also get annoyed when reading non-fiction. I like a really lightweight book at bedtime and I like historical romance. Nothing annoys like a story set in England but written by an American who hasn’t done her research. I’ve read about young women walking in the countryside among non-native species of lizard (and at the wrong season, what’s more) and about plants with different flowering seasons being all in bloom at the same time. Look, lady, if you don’t know your British flora and fauna, don’t include them, OK? Huh. Do I sound like a crotchety old woman yet?
I often find it very distracting on TV programmes when there’s birdsong in the background that clearly comes from another country/wrong time of year etc etc. What are we like?
Yes, that has spoiled whole movies for me.
This is quite timely, as I was recently asked by Cicerone to review a (pdf copy of a) new book (n.b. already published) called Walking in Arolla and Zinal. It was written by a couple who had holidayed there many times, but it was riddled with errors.
As an aside, I had suggested such a book to Cicerone on the Val d’Hérens a few years ago now, but they rejected the idea as they didn’t want to detract from Kev Reynolds’ book on the Valais region as a whole. So things got off to a bad start even before I started reading it!
E.g. You would have been horrified to see a picture of a (probably hairy) Bellflower listed as Bladder Campion!
Key travel information was simply wrong, like the postbus running into the late evening, when the last bus to Arolla is at 16:05 and they said ALL restaurants and huts close in Sept or October, when all the restaurants in Evolène are open all year round (apart from when the owners take a holiday). Yes, some huts close, but most remain open, but with no guardian,
They said tennis was available in Evolène when the courts are in Les Haudères!
The Alpine Snowbell was the first flower to appear – which is clearly nonsense as Spring Meadow Saffron pops up all over the place as soon as the snow melts.
And what made things worse was that, after passing my comments back, I got a rather dismissive reply (e.g. on this last topic) saying:
“As for the first flowers to appear, then I agree that down in Evolène many flowers will appear in March and April, but that is not when summer walkers get to enjoy the mountains. I was trying to suggest flowers that appear at higher altitudes from around June onwards when visitors are first able to walk the majority of the routes.”
And, that’s not to mention the essence of the book – the walks… The book starts by listing the first 3 sections of the Tour de Val d’Hérens and then mentions said route later as a multi-day walk, so they get a lot of mileage out of effectively one route! And I pointed out that they missed a trick on the first Walk by not including (even the option of) going along the ridge above Thyon – it would make it too far they said. But, for maybe an additional 1km, it would be well worth it. (Clearly they’d never done that bit!)
Cicerone asked me to put a link to the book on my website… You can guess that I politely declined.
Wow Mike, that’s a lot of errors….and it’s so important for walking books to be accurate. I can understand that they become out of date, but to be wrong before they’re even published is inexcusable. Walking in the mountains can be hazardous at the best of the times, even with sensible precautions and equipment, so you could do without errors on such things as bus times. Nothing worse than arriving at the end of a long walk only to find that the last bus has gone. Harrumph!
Those were just a few of the errors. They created their own difficulty rating for the walks, which is OK, but they described the Swiss footpath marking system, of yellow, red and white and blue and white paint incorrectly. (This is basic stuff, which any regular walker in Switzerland should know and is readily available online with a bit of research).
They say there’s “limited seasonal lifts above Arolla” (one of the main bases for the book), but there are no lifts at all in Arolla. OK, there’s a button lift in the ski season, but nothing in the summer. (You’d struggle to go up a hill on a button lift without snow!) So why not just say “there’s no lifts”?!
And they mention to be aware of dogs guarding sheep. In over 10 years walking in the Val d’Hérens, I never saw one!
Quite a few of the walks are linear and, given the limited postbus service, you would have to be up early to arrive at your destination to get a lift back.
I’m very surprised and disappointed with Cicerone.
As a librarian I’m very concerned with truth – a survey was done that found that after doctors, librarians were the most trusted providers of information. Now anyone can look something up on the internet and it may or may not be true.
Even in libraries, enquiry skills aren’t always what they used to be. With AI and virtually generated images I fear very much for how we will ever know the truth in future.