Date:    Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:27:05 -0400
<br>From:    Larry Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: bogus anecdotes
<br>
<br>At 8:38 AM -0400 6/2/98, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
<br>>At 08:16 AM 6/2/98 -0400, you wrote:
<br>>>Someone questioned the veracity of the RH elevator narrative. (Sorry, I
<br>>>deleted before I noted who wrote it.) Certainly, some of the
<br>>>Metropolitan Diary entries are bogus. Recently, I read there the old urban
<br>>>legend about the nun who bought the package of cookies, encountered a man
<br>>>who helped himself, etc. -- she, of course, later finds her package of
<br>>>cookies in her bag and realizes that she was the one who helped herself
<br>>>to somebody else's cookies. My point: I do not recall reading any
<br>>>published research about the hallmarks of bogus narratives, about what it
<br>>>is I know that lets me know that a narrative is bogus. Is there
<br>>>something? Is someone working on this?
<br>>>
<br>>>Bethany
<br>>>
<br>>
<br>>There's been a lot of collecting of "urban folklore" or "modern folklore,"
<br>>as well as a good deal of research analysing it and debunking it and, in
<br>>some cases, tracing how a particular idea or story arose.
<br>>
<br>>Here are a couple of things that sometimes give folklore away -- (1) As a
<br>>prior poster mentioned, various elements in the story seem unlikely or
<br>>impossible when you start to examine them. (2) The story seems to have a
<br>>cultural agenda of some kind, which gives it the momentum it needs to get
<br>>over the hurdles that might be raised by its lack of realism. In fact, it is
<br>>probably this agenda which is responsible for why the story was designed the
<br>>way it was, and why it resonated and got retold.
<br>
<br>As in the "yeah, yeah" / "yeah, right" story, in which typically it's a
<br>"pompous professor of linguistics" (or variant thereof) who gets skewered.
<br>But I've heard the Morgenbesser version from philosophers often enough to
<br>think there's a 50-50 chance it could have been an actual anecdote rather
<br>than urban legend.  Of course, that's no doubt what others say about the
<br>Neiman-Marcus cookies, the stolen corpse-containing suitcase, the
<br>alligators in the sewers, etc. etc.
<br>  There's also the intermediate case, which conceivably could apply here:
<br>an actual exchange or series of exchanges, edited and "improved" to advance
<br>that cultural agenda more convincingly or memorably.
<br>
<br>>
<br>>A very common "authentifying" feature of such folklore is either "I was
<br>>there" or "I heard it from someone who was there." I imagine that, as
<br>>journalists, NYTimes writers are more likely to say that they themselves
<br>>have obtained the information at first hand.
<br>>
<br>True, but note for this particular case that a Metropolitan Diary entry is
<br>neither submitted by nor corroborated by a reporter, just selected by one.
<br>(They're just sent in by readers, representing no more inherently accurate
<br>pieces of journalism than, say, submissions to Penthouse Forum.)
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>