Wednesday, December 2, 2020

The donuts story

If you came here from a Facebook post, you can skip the next paragraph as it is the same as what was posted. If you just found the page, I hope you can get something from it.


Just passing on a little bit of trivia for anyone who might be interested. How a donut got it’s name. It is curious how a circle of fried dough came to be called a donut, or more correctly doughnut. It’s really quite simple. At the time when donuts were first introduced to the English speaking people, the shape resembles an O or a zero, and another name for zero is naught. So they were called dough naughts, and over time the name has evolved, or devolved, whichever you prefer.  That’s the simple part of the story, for more information, check my blogspot page.


So here is the rest of the story. What I wrote above and on FB is total bull, I pulled the whole story from thin air. I did this several years ago at work as an example that if someone says something with an attitude of authority, and the story sounds plausible, people will simply believe it. And this today is a problem. So many posts are shared as fact, or a quote from some famous person, then the post is simply forwarded or shared on and on and on. There is a word for this, it’s called gossip, it’s also perpetuating lies. If you want to know how a doughnut got it’s name, go do some research. And the next time someone posts a quote by Abe Lincoln, or Charlie Brown, go research that too, odds are it’s just as bogus as the donut story above.