Jim Lewis wrote:
wrote:

For whatever reason 1909 was chosen and from whatever source it came,
that date was then repeated down through the years in probably scores of
books and articles. And hundreds of websites currently.

True of more than a few "facts" repeated in bonsai "texts" over the
years. If an author doesn't "know" something himself (or herself) he
(or she) simply re-states what someone _else_ wrote. (Probably true in
other fields, as well.)

I'm a food writer and have found it to be the same sort of thing here.
John Thorne, a considerable writer, says that food writers are "thieving
magpies all" and it's true. Why do original research when it says right
here that...?

All those errors of earlier writers become the orthodoxy and it's very
difficult to get people to consider that what they "know" isn't so.

I've done an annual radio program for the past 17 years on "What you
know that just ain't so" and every year, I get heated calls telling me
that what I just said is wrong because the caller's mother/aunt/grannie
only did it that way for 30/40/50 years and it always worked. And it was
the best way to do it, even if they never tasted any other versions of
it. Actual research be damned...

Pastorio

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