Accidentally Accurate: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.''|'''[[Winston Churchill|Sir Winston Churchill]]''', 1941 address to the U.S. Congress}}

This is a subversion of [[Did Not Do the Research]]~~--the~~ research wasn't done, but the writer was still correct on at least a few ~~points--by~~ complete fluke.

This is a subversion of [[Did Not Do the Research]]—the research wasn't done, but the writer was still correct on at least a few points—by complete fluke.

This can be hard to tell from [[Shown Their Work]], and can often only be seen in context with the rest of the work--[[Shown Their Work]] would prove to have all research shown, [[Accidentally Accurate]] is pretty much hit and miss.

This can be hard to tell from [[Shown Their Work]], and can often only be seen in context with the rest of the work--[[Shown Their Work]] would prove to have all research shown, '''Accidentally Accurate''' is pretty much hit and miss.

If research not available at the time of the writing proves them right, that's a case of [[Science Marches On]] meeting this trope. If the theory would never have been accepted by researchers working in whatever field (e.g. Professor [[wikipedia:Alexander Abian|Alexander Abian]]'s theory that we should blow up the moon to stop Typhus), it's just the writers fertilizing some [[Epileptic Trees]]. If the writer was just showing off an obscure fact that he or she knows, that's [[Shown Their Work]]. Compare: [[Right for the Wrong Reasons]]. For the same principle applied to tactics, see [[Strategy Schmategy]].

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== Fanfic ==

* Many [[Dramatic Reading~~|Dramatic Readings~~]] of ''[[My Immortal]]'' scoff at the line which says that it was snowing and raining at the same time. This is known as "sleet" and it very much happens in the real world. If you believe one of the people who confessed to writing it as a [[Troll Fic]], the author thought it was impossible and put it in as a joke.

* Many [[Dramatic Reading]]s of ''[[My Immortal]]'' scoff at the line which says that it was snowing and raining at the same time. This is known as "sleet" and it very much happens in the real world. If you believe one of the people who confessed to writing it as a [[Troll Fic]], the author thought it was impossible and put it in as a joke.

** It has also "rained" slush, which also works.

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== Literature ==

* Improperly used adjectives are all over ''The [[Eye of Argon]]'' (amongst other linguistic woes). Surprisingly, "scarlet" emerald isn't one of them: they're also called [[wikipedia:Beryl#Red beryl|red beryls]]. It's unlikely that Jim Theis knew this.

* In ''[[The Twilight Saga|Eclipse]]'', Bella, Edward, and Jacob hide out in the mountains on the same evening that there is a freak snowstorm. There really was a freak snowstorm in that region of the United States in June of 2006.

* In ''[[The Twilight Saga|Eclipse]]'', Bella, Edward, and Jacob hide out in the mountains on the same evening that there is a freak snowstorm. There really was a freak snowstorm in that region of the United States in June 2006.

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[SeaQuest DSV]]'' had an episode where a character claims to have found something in the handwriting of the Greek poet Homer. This has to be incorrect, because it would be impossible for a blind man to write something that wasn't written down for many years. While it's not clear whether the writers knew it, there is a significant amount of scholarship debating whether Homer was actually blind and whether ''The Odyssey'' was actually written, as opposed to an oral narrative.

* ''Se Lo Que Hicisteis'' made a joke where they referred to the [[Dragon Ball~~|Dragon Balls~~]] as "Chinese balls", which refers to.... huh, anal beads. ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' is a Japanese series, but of course, [[All Asians Are Alike]] and All of Asia is China, so the show ''must'' hail from China, right? Except the balls are originally named in Gratuitous Chinese (A fact all Spanish dubs removed), so they're technically right. It's unlikely the guys who keep on saying the [[Maneki Neko]] is Chinese knew this...

* ''Se Lo Que Hicisteis'' made a joke where they referred to the [[Dragon Ball]]s as "Chinese balls", which refers to.... huh, anal beads. ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' is a Japanese series, but of course, [[All Asians Are Alike]] and All of Asia is China, so the show ''must'' hail from China, right? Except the balls are originally named in Gratuitous Chinese (A fact all Spanish dubs removed), so they're technically right. It's unlikely the guys who keep on saying the [[Maneki Neko]] is Chinese knew this...

* The season 34 episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' had a sketch about people who would benefit from the 2008 bailout that happened when the global economic meltdown was still fresh. Darrell Hammond and Casey Wilson played a couple named [[wikipedia:Herb Sandler|Herbert]] and [[wikipedia:Marion Sandler|Marion Sandler]] (no relation to [[Adam Sandler|Adam]]) who screwed Wachovia Bank out of a lot of money and profited from the economic meltdown. Now, considering that there were two other fictional characters introduced before them, you'd expect Herbert and Marion to be fakes, too, right? Not in this case: turns out Herbert and Marion Sandler were real people who did exactly what the sketch said they did ([[Lorne Michaels]] didn't realize this until after the sketch aired), making the brief clip of them being described as "People who should be shot" by a lower-third graphic tasteless (which explains why the NBC website video and the televised reruns got rid of that scene in the "2008 Bailout" sketch).

* On an episode of ''[[Wheel of Fortune]]'', host Pat Sajak joked that the show had only used the category Fictional Family eight times when it came up in one round. At the end of the show, the research department found out that it actually ''had'' been used only eight times.