--- title: Friends who cling to a legend — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Friends who cling to a legend», a lesson of the myths course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Arguments about facts are rarely only about facts. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/) / Friends who cling to a legend # Friends who cling to a legend Lesson 31 of the myths course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/0/) — Arguments about facts are rarely only about facts. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/1/) — When Maisie says "I'm not talking to you until you admit goldfish are stupid", the fight is about winning now, not about fish. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/2/) — A good checker keeps two things apart: what is true, and how the other person feels. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/3/) — You can be right about the fish and still lose a friend by shouting "WRONG!" in front of the whole class. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/4/) — So check before you argue, check together rather than against each other, and never make it about someone's family, cleverness or feelings. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/6/) — Sometimes the wise words are "you were right", sometimes "you're both sort of right", and sometimes "it doesn't matter, want to play?" - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/7/) — Ostriches lay the biggest eggs of any living bird. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/8/) — In a thunderstorm a car protects you mainly because of its metal body, not because of its rubber tyres. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/9/) — Goldfish can remember things for months; they can be trained to come for food at a signal. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/10/) — Botanists (plant scientists) call tomatoes fruits because they hold seeds, but cooks treat them as vegetables, and in 1893 a US court case called them vegetables for tax. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/11/) — Peanuts are not true nuts; they are legumes, like peas and beans, and their pods grow underground. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/13/) — The Sahara is the largest hot desert; the largest desert of all is Antarctica, because a desert is a place with very little rain or snow. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/14/) — Since 2006 astronomers have called Pluto a dwarf planet, though some scientists still argue about the definition. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/15/) — Lemmings (small furry animals of the far north) do not jump off cliffs to die all together; a 1958 nature film helped spread the story with scenes that were staged. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/16/) — Correcting someone in front of everyone often hurts more than the mistake itself. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/17/) — Betting things on facts can lose you both the thing and the friend; checking together costs nothing. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/31-friends-who-cling-to-a-legend/18/) — Saying sorry after a row matters more than who was right. - ← previous: [How would we know? Asking experts and spotting tricks](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/30-how-would-we-know-asking-experts-and-spotting-tricks/) - next →: [Siblings, cousins, grandparents — and the whole playground](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/32-siblings-cousins-grandparents-and-the-whole-playground/) - ↑ back to [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/)