Lillian Mountweazel and the Ego Trap

I posted this image on Facebook yesterday. 

Of course, the joke here is that there are two hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water (H2O) and there's only one star in our solar system - the sun. However, the comment is deliberately couched in such a way that it resembles one of those many 'there are more stars in our galaxy than grains of sand on all the beaches of the world'-type factoids that constantly circulate as memes. And it catches a few people out because of that.

What's more interesting is that images like this are sometimes known as ego traps because there will be people who immediately feel the need to point out that this is either 'banal truth and not funny' or suggest that what the caption should say is 'glass, not molecule'. The name ego trap is possibly a little harsh but it stems from the idea that some people feel a compulsion to demonstrate that they are cleverer than those around them - even to complete strangers.

I just thought it was an amusing gag.

Traps of various kinds are also used in printed documents. Do you, for instance, know what a mountweazel is?

A mountweazel is a copyright trap; a deliberately false fact, name or word that the author inserts into a work so that they can track plagiarism. One of the most famous appeared in Fred L Worth’s Trivia Encyclopaedia in the late 1970s when he deliberately (and wrongly) stated that shabby TV detective Columbo’s first name was Philip. This ‘fact’ subsequently appeared in questions for the board game Trivial Pursuit in 1984 and Worth tried to sue the game’s creators. However, in this case, the courts ruled that it was acceptable for a game about trivia to source its facts from books of trivia as facts are common property and not owned by anyone. 

Incidentally, the name 'Mountweazel' was coined by The New Yorker writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry intentionally placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopedia. The entry described Lillian Virginia Mountweazel as a fountain designer turned photographer, who died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine. Allegedly, she is widely known for her photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris, and rural American mailboxes. According to the encyclopedia's editor, it is a tradition for encyclopedias to put a fake entry to trap competitors for plagiarism. The surname came to be associated with all such fictitious entries. The term nihilartikel, combining the Latin nihil ("nothing") and German Artikel ("article"), is also sometimes used. 

Oh, and as for Columbo's first name ...  it's Frank. Although it was never used in the TV movies, it is clearly seen on his police badge in a couple of episodes.

Cartographers also put false place names - known as phantom settlements, trap streets, paper towns, or cartographer's follies - on maps as copyright traps. In 1978, the fictional American towns of Beatosu and Goblu in Ohio were inserted into that year's official state of Michigan map as nods to the University of Michigan and its traditional rival, The Ohio State University. Mount Richard, a fictitious peak on the continental divide in the United States, appeared on county maps in the early 1970s. It was believed to be the work of a draftsman, Richard Ciacci. The nonexistence of the mountain was undiscovered for two years. The 2002 Geographers A-Z Map of Manchester also contains traps. For example, Dickinson Street in central Manchester is falsely named Philpott St. 

But the two most famous examples are Agloe and Argleton.

The fictional town of Agloe in New York state was invented by map makers, but eventually became identified as a real place by its county administration because a building, the Agloe General Store, was erected at its fictional location. The 'town' is featured in the novel Paper Towns by John Green and its film adaptation. 

Meanwhile, the fictitious English town of Argleton in Lancashire was investigated by Steve Punt in an episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Punt PI (You can listen to it here). It appeared on maps and even on Google Earth (though since removed). The programme concluded that the town's entry may well have originated as a copyright trap. There's a nice Guardian article on it here.

If there's a lesson to be learned here it's read once, check twice!