Gunfighters on Wikipedia

hinker in Science / Social Sciences / Sociology

Mike Sutton

Dr Mike Sutton is the author of 'Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret'.

Archived http://archive.is/o2BM3

• Bio 1
• Prior Works 1
• Blog 378
• Articles 27
• Topics 1
• Ebooks 1
• Reviews

Recent Posts Categories Archives

Link

Print

Email

Edit

Share

RSS

 

Dysology and Criminology: The Blog of Mike Sutton. All my opinions are my own and may not reflect those of any employer or organisation

Posted in Science / Social Sciences / Sociology

Sutton's Mythbusting Protest. Wikipedia Myth Number 10. The Gun-Fighter Myth

ShareRetweetSyndicate

Views (476)

Nov. 10, 2013 4:27 pm

Categories: Counterknowledge, Dysology

Keywords: newly busted myth, ‘The gun-slinger myth, Wikipedia Myth, newly discovered fallacy, Wikipedia passively sanctions, origin of gunfighter, origin of gunslinger, etymology, dysology

Here on Best Thinking, everyday throughout November I am publishing a newly busted myth, or newly discovered fallacy, which is currently being disseminated by the on-line encyclopaedia known as Wikipedia.

I am highlighting Wikipedia’s unreliability and dreadful quality of information in protest against its deliberate policy of facilitating and refusing to halt engaging in stealth plagiarism of information from the unique work of expert authors.

At the time of writing, Wikipedia’s senior editors refuse to cite Best Thinking as a reliable source, yet Wikipedia regularly plagiarizes the original content on this site to pass-off my unique myth busting discoveries as though they are discoveries made by its own replicators who refer to themselves collectively as ‘Wikipedians’. Wikipedia passively sanctions this self-serving fraudulent behavior in order to conceal its unreliability and pervasive mythmongering. (Click here: for the full story).

Today’s blog reveals that Wikipedia is publishing a stealth-myth about when the hyphenated term 'gun-fighter' first entered the English language.

Myth

On 11th November 2013 Wikipedia is mythmongering that gunfighter is a 20th century word.   

‘Gunfighter and gunslinger, are 20th-century words, used in cinema or literature, referring to men in the American Old West who had gained a reputation as being dangerous with a gun.’

Fact

Without a hyphen ‘gunfighter’ is a 20th-Century word but hyphenated as 'gun-fighter’ the term goes back to 1885.

Triplett, F. (1885)    History, romance and philosophy of great American crimes and criminals. New York, St. Louis, N.D. Thompson publ. co. pp. xxvii and p.520:

‘STIRRING EVENTS. THE WESTERN DESPERADO. THE KILLER, RUSTLER, GUN-FIGHTER AND OTHERS. THE KANSAS SPECIMEN. JAMESES AND YOUNGERS.

Similarly 'gun-slinging' (if not gunslinger) is of 19th century origin.

Bain, R. (1899) History of the ancient province of Ross (the county palatine of Scotland) from the earliest to the present time. Dingwall, Pefferside Press. Page 356   

'I am convinced that our American cousins would be much less addicted to bowie-knifing, revolvering, expectorating, gun-slinging, and cow-hiding the members of their Legislature if they would only substitute trim, level, hedge-lined highways…’

How to reference this discovery

Sutton’s Mythbusting Protest: Wikipedia Myth No. 10 ‘The gun-slinger myth’. Best Thinking November 11th 2013.