Why do rug salespeople get a bad rap?

Here is an absolutely charming story about how an American guy walking down the street in Turkey gets talked into buying a rug. He even still likes the rug after they've brought it home. What I really liked about this story is how the writer describes why the persuasive salesperson was so very effective. He analyzes some of the techniques used so that you would be able to recognize them if they are used on you. Is the product really a scarce resource you can only get now at this one time price? I'm not suggesting sales people are all bad or insincere; it's just that you should be able to notice the techniques being employed, and decide how you want to react.

George Bernard Shaw's finest work

GBS is often quoted as saying England and America are two countries divided by a common language, which is a really amusing and descriptive quote, except that he never said that. Oh well, it's a great misquote. This lovely page mentions some of the most well known misquotes. What? You mean Kirk never told Scotty to "Beam me up"?

One of the things that's interesting to me is the persistence of misinformation. I suspect the Internet has made this sort of mythology harder to eradicate. Once it appears in one place, and then gets referenced elsewhere, it's even harder to correct. Even if you remove a web page, many times a saved version of it remains in Google's cache or the Wayback machine archive.