10. In America, Tadpoles Are Polliwogs
Maybe this isn't a mind-blowing theory as such, but I (and probably many other American fans) (or maybe just me) took umbrage at this ridiculous notion that Americans don't call tadpoles "tadpoles." That is nonsense. It's such nonsense that however many years later, when writing an article about QI nonsense (what my boyfriend and I call these dubious factoids) it was the first one that sprung to mind. I won't deny that
some Americans call tadpoles polliwogs. I've never heard anyone use the term, granted, but it could be one of those things you can chalk up to the vast differences in vocabulary you find across the continental United States. Take, for example, the generic word people use to refer to a carbonated beverage like Pepsi or Coca-Cola, mapped above (I call it "soda," by the way). Maybe you can trace a polliwog usage map along similar lines, with polliwog matching to that green "coke" wilderness or something, I don't know. I won't deny that's a possibility. But this idea that in American English as it's spoken today the hands-down default term for a newly-hatched frog is "polliwog" is ludicrous. There. Now that I've set the record straight on this small but vital point, we can move on to more interesting things.