VI: Dandelion
What is the real world's tallest dandelion?
Good morning. Today is sextidi, the 26th of Ventôse, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le pissenlit, everyone's favorite weed.
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The name "dandelion" is not because the yellow flower looks like the handsome mane of a debonair lion. It's an English bastardization of one French name, dent-de-lion, meaning lion's tooth, for the serrated shape of the green leaves. But that's not the word above, is it? What does pissenlit mean? Because it sounds dirty! Well, it is. It's a French bastardization (see, things go the other way, too) of the English nickname piss-the-bed for the plant's culinary ability to, uh, get your juices moving. There are so many names for this flower. I'm partial to this well-ordered list from the Wikipedia page: blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch's gowan, milk witch, yellow-gowan, Irish daisy, monks-head, priest's-crown, puff-ball,,face-clock, wet-a-bed, swine's snout, white endive, and wild endive.
When it comes to the Guinness Book of World Records, what matters?
Certainly, if you were to reach out to a Guinness press representative and ask, they would assert that accuracy and verification are the core of their brand, and that the incredible – sometimes dangerous – lengths that people go to in order to set records demand a rigorous fact check to ensure all is not in vain.
So why is the world's tallest dandelion record a complete fraud?
