Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
An editor took strong exception to my request for
sources for
"popular culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One
of these items was:
"The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball
team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."
The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the
SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for Pete's sake."
I replied that if it was all that obvious it shouldn't be that hard
to paste in a link from the team's website. Since I try to play fair,
I proceeded to go to the team's website myself to get the link.
Well, whaddaya know.
The team's mascot is, in fact, NOT the Statue of Liberty, but a dog
named Maddie, for Madison Square Garden.
This urban myth was quite harmless, but the story proves a point that
what people honestly believe may not always be true. Harmless comments
are more quickly left unchallenged, but you can never be too safe.
Ec