A couple days ago, Assistant Principal Sue Kovacs e-mailed us a list of “rules for life” that Bill Gates gave at a speech at some high school.

As it turns out, they weren’t by him.

Apparently this was just another urban legend — like the one where Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet. He never actually made that claim — he simply said that he encouraged the development of the Internet in an economic and legislative sense.

It’s amazing how many urban legends have worked themselves into our “common knowledge.” Sherlock Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Twinkies don’t have an indefinite shelf life. Caesar salad isn’t named after one of the Caesars (although Caesarean section is). The Great Wall of China isn’t the only man-made object you can see from the moon. In fact, according to some astronauts, it’s almost invisible. German chocolate cake was named after a person, not the country.

However, there are a lot of things that seem like myths but are actually true. The temperature can be determined by the number of chirps a cricket makes. Gatorade was made for the Florida Gators, the University of Florida football team. Gel candles can explode. Jell-O is made from bones and hides. Once upon a (happier?) time Coca-Cola did contain cocaine. And yep, the Marlboro Man did die of lung cancer.

Then there are the urban legends that are incredibly amazing, yet true. Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest — he didn’t even make it into the finals! During World War I there was a Christmas truce where the British and German troops left the trenches to play soccer, sing carols, and exchange gifts. All this, only to go back to killing each other the next day.

Oh, and did you know that entering a phone number (with an area code) into Google will give you the name of the person living there, and a map to their address? Yeah, creepy. So is the sidewalk chalk that contains lead. And back in the old (not so happy?) days Disneyland used to deny entrance to long-haired guys.

The amount of stories we fall for, bogus or not, is amazing. I guess, as long as it’s harmless, it doesn’t really matter. There’s so much information out there that it’s hard to determine what is true and what is not.