Talk:Bathtub hoax

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Work needed

this article needs a great deal of work. no where does it explain that this was a hoax, and what the intent of the hoax was. Kingturtle 02:22, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see you say that the article doesn't say it's a hoax. The title and quote are quite clear, and it clearly states that the article was false. What kind of improvements would you suggest?

On the *why* of the hoax, there is some speculation that Mencken wanted to make a point about the unreliability of the newspapers, which were full of war propaganda at the time, possibly also because Mencken is claimed to have been sympathetic with Germany at the time (World War One). I do not know whether this theory has any merit and how widespread it is. Perhaps someone who knows more about Mencken than I can contribute. Martijn Faassen 00:03, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would assume (which, of course, would seem to be original research, but whatever) that the point of the hoax is how easy it is to lie to people. He finds it hilarious, in the quote, that it stays in the public memory as truth, especially that it stays in those places of pretention. He is bringing people low, because they can be brought low. If they were as smart as they should be, they'd know that their facts about the bathtub were the deliberate lies of a journalist. Their fault. Of course, I could be wrong. (grr, it signed the top of the page instead of my comment. Stupid text box.129.237.90.54 23:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:BJAODN

This article is a candidate for BAJODN. We could transwiki it to Wikicomedy or retain it on Wikipedia's BJAODN. --SuperDude 02:43, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I thought that was for bad jokes and nonsense internal to wikipedia, not a description of hoaxes in the world. Martijn Faassen

It's definitely not a hoax about a hoax. This is a famous Mencken story. How many articles on this website are hoaxes? Is there a catalogue of articles people have tried to plant here? It worries me that anybody can write anything here. The quality of the articles here is really, really good so I suppose there are moderators who perform fact-checking. --Rosejpalmer 03:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

PS BJAODN is pretty good. Is there a Wikipedia forum? I don't feel comfortable discussing things on this page that just seems to get bigger and bigger. --Rosejpalmer 03:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Dates

The text says: "It was a completely fictional account of how bathtubs were introduced into the United States as recently as 1842, only having been introduced in England in 1828."

The dates (years) are wrong, or the writing is. When "only having been (something)" is said, one usually expects what follows to be in a later date than whatever precedes it. That was a terrible description ;) but to make it clear, here goes an example: "Bathtubs were introduced as recently as 1842, only having been introduced in England later than that".

Hm, my understanding of the English language is different; your example looks really odd to me. I'm curious to see more about this. Perhaps though we should rewrite this text entirely, as evidently it can give rise to confusion. Martijn Faassen 23:06, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Afd

This article survived an Afd, the discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bathtub hoax. Friday (talk) 21:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Source

I don't know how to properly cite a source here, but this link here: http://www.cjr.org/issues/2007/2/Love.asp mentions this hoax about 2/3 the way through (ctrl-F bathtub). The CJR is a pretty reliable source, so...have at ye.129.237.90.54 00:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Fillmore Days

What does the 'Fillmore Days' part have to do with the rest of the article?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.178.74.86 (talk) 00:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Made it clear, at least I hope so. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Taken seriously?

Apart from quotes from Mencken himself, is there any evidence the hoax was taken seriously? Shtove (talk) 12:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)