• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Mandela Effect: False Memory

escargot said:
Is that the one where people are watching a parade with a marching band, which turns out to be a collection of cardboard tubes and boxes?
Click to expand...
That was on the other day! No, that was Virtual Nightmare.
 
Here's a topical one.

We all know that the 1918 Armistice came into force at 11am on the 11th November. However, I have a persistent memory of being taught that the actual time was eleven minutes past 11, i.e. 11:11 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and that this was the start time for observing the silence.

This is rubbish and I'd put it down to a childhood misapprehension if I hadn't come across the same belief online this week. Can't remember where I saw this, possibly Reddit. Kids were having their school break time changed to accommodate the silence at 11:11 rather than 11am because some senior teacher believed that was the correct time.

So it's not just me. Are we both wrong? Most likely, but where did we get it from?
 
I can recall joking with other kids that the plan had been to align everything on 'the elevens', meaning that the armistice took effect on (e.g.) the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour (etc.). Other than such joking I don't recall anyone seriously claiming there was an 'elevens' principle applied at any granularity finer than an hour.

My understanding is that the 'elevens' bit was more the result of happenstance than any plan. The German delegation arrived at the meeting site on 8 November under a mandate to reach an agreement within 72 hours (i.e., no later than 11 November). The armistice terms set an implementation time of 6 hours after signature, and the armistice was signed at around 0500 on the last allotted day.

It's never been clear to me whether the 6-hour bit was built into the formal terms from the beginning (versus being a gloss done specifically for the sake of aligning elevens). Neither do I know whether the 0500 signature time was prescribed just to make all the elevens align.

My eventual impression was that the 'elevens' bit was a convenient mnemonic device that reflected coincidence rather than deliberate planning. I frankly don't give the parties involved credit for worrying about clarity or mnemonic effectiveness.
 
escargot said:
Here's a topical one.

We all know that the 1918 Armistice came into force at 11am on the 11th November. However, I have a persistent memory of being taught that the actual time was eleven minutes past 11, i.e. 11:11 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and that this was the start time for observing the silence.

This is rubbish and I'd put it down to a childhood misapprehension if I hadn't come across the same belief online this week. Can't remember where I saw this, possibly Reddit. Kids were having their school break time changed to accommodate the silence at 11:11 rather than 11am because some senior teacher believed that was the correct time.

So it's not just me. Are we both wrong? Most likely, but where did we get it from?
Click to expand...
On a related note, I keep on hearing the term "Unknown Warrior" today whereas my memory is of the "Unknown Soldier". Looking it up, I discover the latter is actually the US memorial at Arlington rather than the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey.
 
cycleboy2 said:
On a related note, I keep on hearing the term "Unknown Warrior" today whereas my memory is of the "Unknown Soldier". Looking it up, I discover the latter is actually the US memorial at Arlington rather than the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey.
Click to expand...
Yup, it was 'Unknown Soldier' when I was a child in the '60s. The point was he was just a soldier, a Tommy, nobody special, known only unto god. 'Warrior' implies someone with a little grandeur.
 
escargot said:
Yup, it was 'Unknown Soldier' when I was a child in the '60s. The point was he was just a soldier, a Tommy, nobody special, known only unto god. 'Warrior' implies someone with a little grandeur.
Click to expand...
The tombstone actually refers to a warrior

“Beneath this stone rests the body
Of a British warrior
Unknown by name or rank”

But I’ve always known it as unknown soldier.
 
gordonrutter said:
The tombstone actually refers to a warrior

“Beneath this stone rests the body
Of a British warrior
Unknown by name or rank”

But I’ve always known it as unknown soldier.
Click to expand...
'Soldier' is the colloquial term. People's husbands and sons didn't go off to be warriors.
 
escargot said:
Here's a topical one.

We all know that the 1918 Armistice came into force at 11am on the 11th November. However, I have a persistent memory of being taught that the actual time was eleven minutes past 11, i.e. 11:11 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and that this was the start time for observing the silence.

This is rubbish and I'd put it down to a childhood misapprehension if I hadn't come across the same belief online this week. Can't remember where I saw this, possibly Reddit. Kids were having their school break time changed to accommodate the silence at 11:11 rather than 11am because some senior teacher believed that was the correct time.

So it's not just me. Are we both wrong? Most likely, but where did we get it from?
Click to expand...
By coincidence, I saved a file at work today at exactly 11:11 am. I noticed the time and date and thought 'oh, that's odd'.
 
ghughesarch said:
The 1973 'bike' Hovis advert had a Yorkshire accented voiceover, possibly by Joe Gladwin who played Wally Batty in 'Last of the Summer Wine'.
Except that it didn't, it had a Westcountry voiceover.
What did have a Yorkshire voiceover was a 1978 parody of the advert by the Two Ronnies, but is that the origin of the misperception?
Both here, one after the other:

Click to expand...
Turns out there was a visually similar Hovis advert in the same year, that *did* have a definitely Northern setting and voiceover 1973 northern Hovis ad
 
Dunno if this has come up before but the musician Keith Richards has also been known as Keith Richard. Why? I dunno.
 
escargot said:
Dunno if this has come up before but the musician Keith Richards has also been known as Keith Richard. Why? I dunno.
Click to expand...
I suspect that one is just confusion with Cliff Richard. I wondered for a while why Keith seemed to have a different last name on some days, then I was reminded of Cliff for some reason and decided that must be what was going on. I don't know. :dunno:
 
Austin Popper said:
I suspect that one is just confusion with Cliff Richard. I wondered for a while why Keith seemed to have a different last name on some days, then I was reminded of Cliff for some reason and decided that must be what was going on. I don't know. :dunno:
Click to expand...
It can’t be often that Keith Richards and Cliff Richard are confused with each other!
 
Then there's Tolkien/Tolkein. That causes "huh?" when challenged...
 
Austin Popper said:
I suspect that one is just confusion with Cliff Richard. I wondered for a while why Keith seemed to have a different last name on some days, then I was reminded of Cliff for some reason and decided that must be what was going on. I don't know. :dunno:
Click to expand...

This is the first line of the Wikipedia page about him -

Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943), often referred to during the 1960s and 1970s as Keith Richard, is an English musician, singer, and songwriter.
Click to expand...

I vaguely remember a newspaper article discussing the sometimes random addition or subtraction of a final letter 's' from certain artists' names. It must matter to someone!
 
Probably explicable in context. But.
Not an AdTurd as such, but I was watching Channel Five earlier tonight (Well. sometimes you have to, I don't make a habit of it) and the show was "Britain's Best Christmas Adverts". All the familiar ones, yes, and some obscure gems from the archives like Twink Home Perms from the 1950's. ("look your very best for your man at Christmas") Most of it was familiar and fun. But for about 15 minutes presenter Julian Clary, for it was he, went off on a tangent about something I'd honestly never, ever, seen before and had no idea existed. This series of adverts has apparently been running every Christmas for four years and have been a huge, huge, hit, earning big awards from ad industry luvvies and big prizes for creative excellence. But I just do not remember ever having seen them, and this is not a thing you'd forget - cuddly cute teddy bears called the Bair family flying into Heathrow every year for a family reunion, the ads morphing into a year-upon-year mini soap opera. Full of schmaltz and schlock, as you might expect in December, but basically inoffensive. It was just that... I'd honestly never, ever, in my life, seen them. Ever. Anywhere. As if all this had dropped in fully-formed from a parellel universe somewhere else. You think - how can you miss this? Have I been asleep? not paying attention? Did I see them and my brain has been wiped afterwards?

Then it occured to me - I live in Manchester-ish. Is it the case that these have only ever been screened in London and possibly the wider south-east? If so... how the hell can they then be called Britain's favourite Christmas TV advert, if the largest part of Britain never saw them? Another case, as tvtropes puts it, of "Britain is Only London"?

Or else.... I really have crossed into a parellel universe....

 
Austin Popper said:
I suspect that one is just confusion with Cliff Richard. I wondered for a while why Keith seemed to have a different last name on some days, then I was reminded of Cliff for some reason and decided that must be what was going on. I don't know. :dunno:
Click to expand...

Sir Cliff* explained on Desert Island Discs that the stage surname name 'Richard' was chosen because interviewers would naturally add the 's'.
This would give Cliff the opportunity to correct them and say his name again.

*Actually Sir Harry of course.
 
AgProv said:
Probably explicable in context. But.
Not an AdTurd as such, but I was watching Channel Five earlier tonight (Well. sometimes you have to, I don't make a habit of it) and the show was "Britain's Best Christmas Adverts". All the familiar ones, yes, and some obscure gems from the archives like Twink Home Perms from the 1950's. ("look your very best for your man at Christmas") Most of it was familiar and fun. But for about 15 minutes presenter Julian Clary, for it was he, went off on a tangent about something I'd honestly never, ever, seen before and had no idea existed. This series of adverts has apparently been running every Christmas for four years and have been a huge, huge, hit, earning big awards from ad industry luvvies and big prizes for creative excellence. But I just do not remember ever having seen them, and this is not a thing you'd forget - cuddly cute teddy bears called the Bair family flying into Heathrow every year for a family reunion, the ads morphing into a year-upon-year mini soap opera. Full of schmaltz and schlock, as you might expect in December, but basically inoffensive. It was just that... I'd honestly never, ever, in my life, seen them. Ever. Anywhere. As if all this had dropped in fully-formed from a parellel universe somewhere else. You think - how can you miss this? Have I been asleep? not paying attention? Did I see them and my brain has been wiped afterwards?

Then it occured to me - I live in Manchester-ish. Is it the case that these have only ever been screened in London and possibly the wider south-east? If so... how the hell can they then be called Britain's favourite Christmas TV advert, if the largest part of Britain never saw them? Another case, as tvtropes puts it, of "Britain is Only London"?

Or else.... I really have crossed into a parellel universe....

Click to expand...
New to me too. We haven't watched ads since we've had Sky though.
 
I was an avid Rollings Stones fan as a teeny in the late 60's and early 70's. Every LP I bought, about 10 of them, listed the song credits on the label as "Jagger/Richard" so it's hard for me to adjust to 'Richards. But or that's what it takes for eternal life, so be it.
 
Rushfan62 said:
I'm in the North too, I've never seen it either. It'll be London area I'll warrant.
Click to expand...
I'm not in the North (although to a Londoner, I probably am), and I have also no clue about these flying bear adverts.

As AgProv has it, "Britain is only London" to some folk!
 
GerdaWordyer said:
I was an avid Rollings Stones fan as a teeny in the late 60's and early 70's. Every LP I bought, about 10 of them, listed the song credits on the label as "Jagger/Richard" so it's hard for me to adjust to 'Richards. But or that's what it takes for eternal life, so be it.
Click to expand...
Queen's John Deacon was listed on their first album as 'Deacon John'.
I honestly believed they'd wickedly recruited a wannabe vicar, maybe as a short-lived gimmick.

This wasn't so farfetched when you consider that AC/DC's Angus later pretended to be a schoolboy on stage.
 
Peripart said:
I'm not in the North (although to a Londoner, I probably am), and I have also no clue about these flying bear adverts.

As AgProv has it, "Britain is only London" to some folk!
Click to expand...
I have an old Observer magazine, late '80s I think, kept for a particular article, which features a reader's letter grumbling about some Observer series of pieces about England actually referring only to London! :chuckle:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top