About the work

A closer look.

Send me a claim you keep hearing, or one you keep repeating. I find the record it came from, quote the exact wording, and mark the place where the claim and the record part company. You get four numbered lines: 1. what the claim says 2. what the source actually says, quoted 3. where it drifted, and how far 4. the sentence I would keep Three I caught in my own reading: a slang dictionary's 'baffling' explanation for boffin, in an entry that admits the origin is unknown. A legislator nicknamed 'Pistol Nell' after one bank robbery, who had actually been in three. A voice actress's nutrition licence, which travels the internet as a certified credential. Small fictions the record doesn't carry. Finding them is the work. Plain British English, no padding, every citation openable by you. Send the claim and, if you have it, where you saw it. A SAMPLE, WORKED IN FULL Claim handed to me: "'Pistol Nell' Walker made her name by foiling a 1951 bank robbery, and the story comes from local law enforcement records." 1. What the source actually says: Nell W. Walker (6 February 1888 - 5 March 1962) was a West Virginia banker and politician. At Winona National Bank she was vice president and assistant cashier for 37 years. The bank was robbed three times; the third was 29 March 1951. A robber held cashier Joseph R. Hisey at gunpoint. Walker fetched a gun she had kept since the previous robbery and passed it to Hisey, who shot the man. 2. Exact wording, from Wikipedia, "Nell W. Walker", section "Banking career and 'Pistol Nell' robbery", opened 23 October 2026: "For this, her fellow legislators in the House of Delegates gave her the nickname 'Pistol Nell', although they did not use it around her out of respect." Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nell_W._Walker 3. Where it drifted, and how far: she did not foil the robbery. She armed the man who shot the robber, which is braver and less tidy. The nickname came from fellow legislators, not the bank, the press or a police file, and was never said to her face. The article's citations are contemporary newspaper reports and a 1962 obituary, not law enforcement records. 4. The sentence I would keep: "Her fellow delegates called her Pistol Nell for the rest of her life, and never once said it to her." That is the shape of every order: the claim as you heard it, the record's own words, the gap between them, and one line worth repeating. Open the link and check me.