Relentless Inquiry

Or, “How the Internet plays Telephone”– and a more beautiful example of the process I have not yet seen, nor do I expect to see anytime soon.

To make a long story short, today I went looking for a simple fact that would help my railfan spouse remember something. I found my little factoid, presented it to him, and was told “That makes no sense!” So I went and looked some more.

In this listing of NYC transit cars we find that Car 744, on the 8th Avenue IND line, ran with some unusual features, including a Public Address system. It was not the first car to to do so on the NYC line, but was possibly the first one to do so on the 8th Ave IND branch.

A vast number of 'this day in history' sites have captured this factoid, incorrectly, as “New York City transit begins using PA system – Car # 744 on 8th Ave IND line”. An equally vast number of sites have thoughtfully recorded this factoid even more incorrectly (but with greater attention to grammar and style, at least in their minds) as “New York City transit begins using Pennsylvania system – Car # 744 on 8th Ave IND line”.

The latter being the version of the factoid that I discovered first, and which yielded the bewildered response from my expat-Long-Islander. The Pennsylvania system. Mmmmm.

If I could easily discover the propagation chain that would tell me which of the scads of 'this day in history' sites would be worth contacting, I'd bother to try to correct this factoid. I suspect that, given the shortage of apparent changes in history (at least, those visible intrinsically from this timeline) that few of said sites bother to update their lists after the initial snarfing. Now multiply this effect across the entire Internet. Caveat surfor, but just try to convince mom & pop and the cousins of that. Ah well.

Pancho! My horse!