Wednesday, April 27, 2005

never underestimate a freakonomist

Since it seemed like such an urban legend (and a particularly urban urban legend, to boot), I expected that when I e-mailed Doug McAdam to ask if he personally had met twins named OrangeJello and LemonJello (as asserted in Freakonomics, see post here), he was going to say that he hadn't actually met them personally, it had been a friend of his (or friend of friend of his) that had met them personally. But, no, I got a reply from McAdam back saying that he had indeed met a woman in what he guessed was the late 1980s who introduced her twin sons to him as OrangeJello and LemonJello. He notes that the woman could have been lying, of course, but that he didn't have any reason to think she was.

I was telling someone just now about my checking the OrangeJello and LemonJello story, and she said: "Dude, I remember being a teenager and having my uncle tell me about these black twins named OrangeJello and LemonJello and thinking 'Man, you are so freaking racist.'"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While the truth of the matter may not be verified, it certainly has reached urban legend status...last week my wife's cousin swore that a Cedar Rapids family recently gave their twins those names. Of course there was no evidence...

Anonymous said...

oops, guess I should have read further up in the blog before posting my last comment...