The Pedant's Return: Why the Things You Think Are Wrong Are Right

In The Pedant’s Revolt you learned that you were wrong about everything you thought was right. Now the Pedant returns—with a twist. The Pedant’s Return is an addictive collection of outlandish assertions that are so absurd…they must be true. Prepare to discover that you’re wrong about, well, even the things you think are wrong.

Apple seeds are poisonous? An electric eel can actually electrocute you? The “S” in Harry S. Truman doesn’t stand for anything? Everyone knows those are old wives’ tales…or are they? Luckily the Pedant has returned to rescue you from your ignorance and to explain to you why:

•Eating too many carrots can turn you orange
•Bone china contains actual bones
•Men have a higher pain threshold than women
•Charles Darwin married his first cousin
•A beer shortage caused the Pilgrims’ early landing at Plymouth
•Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, had a genital piercing
•A citizen’s arrest is legal

From the entertainment industry to the Bible, food and drink to medical matters, royalty to birds and insects, The Pedant’s Return sets the record straight about everything you thought you knew. Prepare to be fascinated—and flabbergasted—at just how wrong you’ve been all along!

Andrea Barham is the author of The Pedant’s Revolt, and is a technical writer in the U.K. While she is a big fan of the world, she feels that there should be less wrongness and more rightness in it. Painfully aware of her inability to correct the bigger issues such as war, poverty, and global warming, she is concentrating on smaller issues more suited to her skills, which consist of “looking stuff up.” By correcting common misconceptions such as the belief that your heart stops when you sneeze, she is hoping to create a domino effect and that eventually all wrongs will be righted, though she is not holding her breath (which, incidentally, you cannot die from). The Pedant’s Return is her sixth book.