O-Rings for Dummies

Various size O-Rings

Even fifth-graders are familiar with the "bullshit test," though pre-teens are supposed to call it the "reasonableness test." Basically, it means, "Ask yourself, 'Does this statement make sense?'" Unfortunately, far too many freelancers writing for pennies on blogs and at content farms fail to apply the bullshit test to their own writing. As a result, the stupidification of the internet takes one more incremental step toward complete dumbassery. An example of that incremental step came courtesy of Lexa W. Lee of eHow.com when she published "What Are O Rings Used For?"¹

What's an O-ring, you ask? Lexa didn't bother to say, so we will:

An O-ring is a round gasket that, instead of being flat, has a circular cross-section. Geometry geeks call the shape a torus or toiroid, ordinary folk think it looks like a skinny donut (or a doughnut: your choice). O-rings form seals in round things from pipes to the fuel tanks of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Because they form a gasket between metal parts, O-rings are made of a wide range of flexible materials, depending on the conditions of use and the materials being sealed in or out.

You'd think that Lexa would get that, but she doesn't:  "An O-ring is a ring-shaped object, usually made of metal, that functions as a sealing device between two mechanical parts. O-rings can transmit fluids or gases, as well as prevent leaks in machines used in industries ranging from construction to drilling." Usually made of metal? Metal??? How would a metal gasket work, Lexa? It would have to be an extremely malleable metal to function as a gasket, like, oh, we don't know, gold maybe?

No, dumbass, O-rings are made of assorted elastomers (stuff you call "rubber"). That allows them to deform under compression so they can completely fill a gap to form a seal. A metal gasket wouldn't do that without extraordinary pressure. As for "between two mechanical parts," that wording is misleading: O-rings are almost never (we could probably say "never") found between moving parts; they form static seals between two pipes or between a cap and a pipe. And they form seals, Lexa - they don't "transmit fluids or gases"!

Maybe if Lexa (or the eHow content editor) had subjected her first paragraph to a bullshit test, the internet wouldn't have taken that tiny step in the direction of stupidification - but she didn't. That makes her the Antisocial Network's Dumbass of the Day.  

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. The URL was ehow.com/facts_5731543_rings-used-for_.html

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