Stalactites for Dummies

stalactites

We love it </sarcasm> whenever we find liberal arts majors trying desperately to reword even slightly technical material they simply don't understand. We have the most fun when we catch them trying to reword something to avoid being nailed for plagiarism, and in the process creating an unintentional joke. Today's example comes from a multiple repeat offender, WiseGEEK.com's Mary McMahon (complete with a shiny new profile pic that looks nothing like her old one) and her somewhat bizarre approach to the question, "What are Stalactites?" at their AllThingsNature.org niche site.

McMahon's unintentional joke comes from her attempt to "deplagiarize" a sentence originally something like, "Stalactites form in caves or caverns." Apparently fearing that the word "form" would trip a plagiarism detector, Mary opened her post by solemnly intoning that,

"A stalactite is a mineralized water formation which arises in moist cave environments."

Beside being only semi-grammatical – a stalactite (singular) can't form in environments (plural) — that's also amusing to someone who knows the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. You see, stalagmites "arise" from the floor of a cave, but stalactites hang from the ceiling. Chuckle.

That was not, of course, Mary's only faux pas. No, some time later, she informed her readers that,

"These unique formations occur in moist caverns where water becomes mineralized as it flows slowly through the rock which makes up the cave."

Forgive us, Mary, but rocks don't "[make] up the cave," because caves are open spaces. We think you mean the rocks above the cave or even around it. Mary then prattles briefly about that mineralized water, telling us that,

"As the water forces its way out into the air, it evaporates..."

Well, she got the evaporation part right, but "forces"? Maybe that's her rewording of "finds": who knows. When it came time to mention stalagmites, Mary punted; merely saying that,

"...stalagmites [are] conical formations which grow up from the floor of a cave, rather than from the ceiling."

Uh, Mary? Stalagmites grow as a result of water dripping from the ceiling. Don't you think it would have been a good idea to mention that? So, why didn't you? And finally, there was Mary's attempt to share a mnemonic for remembering the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, passing it off as,

"...remember a little play on words: stalactites 'hang tight' from the ceiling, while 'mighty' stalagmites have no hollow central space."

No, Mary, people don't go looking for hollow central spaces! The mnemonic is actually, "StalaCtites hang 'tight' to the Ceiling, but stalaGmites grow from the Ground where you 'might' trip over them."

McMahon never used the words "solution" or "precipitation," both of which are crucial to the definition of  stalagmites and stalactites; but that's probably because the liberal arts major wasn't comfortable using terms she didn't understand. Sometimes we really wish this eleven-time Dumbass of the Day would stop writing about science, but it's too late: this particular rubbish dates back to 2008, when McMahon was still "S. E. Smith."

SI - GEOLOGY