Mrs. Teabody Wonders About All this World Flattening

I vividly recall the first time I stood on the shoreline in Margate, New Jersey (39th parallel North-- same as McConnellsburg, PA) and contemplated the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.  I'd studied geography in school, watched my teachers pull maps of the world down in front of the blackboard, memorized a thing or fifty about the world. There wasn't a school library in my past that didn't feature a globe and it set my brain cells on fire to spin it and think how we all lived on an oblate spheroid floating in space and that we spun, too. Dizzying concept for a child. One of the thoughts I contemplated as I stood there was that if I could walk in a straight line across the Atlantic Ocean, I'd come to Europe. Hopefully, I'd end up in some charming town in England near the Beatles. Near Paul.  This morning's research of the 39th parallel North tells me we share our latitude with the Island of Ibiza (Spain), Island of Sardinia (Italy) then Greece, Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, North Korea. And please note how flat this half of the world appears on the map above.

In 2005 Thomas L. Friedman published a book called The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Now let's be clear. This is not a book saying that we do not live on an oblate spheroid. Friedman's  book analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century. According to an Amazon book review, the title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, wherein all competitors have an equal opportunity. (All in favor of equal opportunity, say "Aye".)  In Hot, Flat and Crowded,  Friedman explores the flattening of the world by the Internet which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage.    I don't believe the earth is actually flat; I don't believe ships can sail to the edge and fall off. Neither do you. You are far too smart to be bamboozled. Other books inform us that technology has made everything about the earth accessible. Should you want to know about far-flung Japan or exactly where the hell Bali is, you can hop aboard your favorite search engine and be there. None of that pesky, daunting walking across the ocean is necessary. But let's be careful.

The Mediterranean from space station

Mrs. Teabody is not uncomfortable with technology, but there still remains a massive and open Miriam-Webster dictionary on a dictionary stand -- Yes, Virginia, there ARE such things! - - in an alcove just off the living room and should one of the Teabodys encounter an unfamiliar or forgotten word, true enlightenment is close at hand. The primary advantage to using a large and old dictionary for information is that each word defined is defined fully from literal to figurative meaning. Examples are given, as well as synonyms, antonyms, homophones along with (where applicable) tense, mode. Old dictionaries are marvelous repositories of knowledge and during the course of Mrs. Teabody's lifetime she has known any number of friends who enjoy reading dictionaries.  In the same vein, Mrs. Teabody can count upon her many clever friends to speak in a language of precision not substituting plate for saucer, cup for mug, genius for ignorance . . . but you catch my drift.

Drift in  this sense is a somewhat colloquial use of the word and in this context - - but you catch my drift is a cue for the reader or listener to pay attention, to think. You should not take what is being said or written at face value only; you must also read between the lines.  Although drift used in this sense sounds like modern slang, this usage actually dates back at least to the early 16th century (“Harde it is … to [perceive] the processe and dryfte of this treatyse,” 1526). Has your brain begun to ache? Mine has. Dictionaries can do that to a person. But I digress . . .

Now having made my admittedly small case for  human-to-book and/or human-to-human inquiry for information garnering, let it be said that Mrs. Teabody can Google with the best of you. On closer consideration, perhaps not the best, probably not the best . . .

Like some of you, Mrs. Teabody can and does type Winterthur hours, cranberry chutney recipe or Is it possible to lose twenty pounds in two days? into a little Google search box and pounces upon the return button.  Like some of you, Mrs. Teabody goes almost into a rapture at the pages of resulting information.

Why shouldn't everyone know the latest and greatest way of slicing a mango? Of removing stubborn cabernet stains from Irish linen? Of diagnosing one's real and/or imaginary illnesses? Having access to all kinds of information with relentless swiftness is heady stuff. Some of you may recall that at one time all your internet queries were answered by universities. Universities have a vested interest in passing on ACCURATE information.

That is what knowledge is: True, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion.

Paul is the cutest Beatle. The best ice cream in the world is Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia. There will never be another song as haunting as Smoky Robinson's "Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, Baby, Baby." Now you may agree that these three things are true but complicity in opinion does not make them facts. When someone agrees with you based on nothing more than feelings, that may make you feel a certain warm fuzziness toward that person but it does not make those feelings into facts.

True, justified belief comes from facts. If I say the moon is made of Stilton cheese, that does not make it fact. But you are certainly within your rights to believe your own ears and/or eyes and to repeat that Mrs. Teabody believes the moon is made of Stilton cheese.

Now, if I say the moon is made of Stilton cheese on Monday and then I say it's made from Clingstone peaches on Tuesday, we have a problem. And you should have a problem with me and my veracity. 

 My willingness to feed you false information should have two outcomes: first, you should do some research for yourself and find out exactly what the moon is made of. Now you will not find that information on Pinterest or in the National Inquirer. You will find that information in scholarly publications where the research is based on SCIENCE . Check your sources.

Second, you need to question my genuineness, my credibility or the credibility of anyone willing to feed you opinions and call them facts. It cannot be enough that you like my car or the cut of my jib or that we share the same Alma Mater. And the next time you are with me you need to ask me why I claimed two conflicting opinions. Take me to task. If you must, sit me in a corner until I admit I played fast and loose with your brain, that I lied. That I know perfectly well what the moon is made of but I chose to  mislead you on purpose.  Deliberately. The Truth is out there. Let's look for it at least as hard as we look for next year's Christmas decorating theme.