Truth: Can You Handle It?

Better Yet: Do You Know It When You See It?
By Monica Hesse

"How many legs does a dog have, if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." Abraham Lincoln

[*Note: Lincoln never said this. He liked a similar, more long-winded anecdote about a cow, but the dog version? Nope. Still, the quote is credited to Abe on some 11,000 different Web pages, including quote resources Brainy Quote and World of Quotes.

Though not technically "true," the quote makes a nice start to this article about truth, being topical and brief, so if we want to go with truth-by-consensus (very popular now), we can go ahead and just say that he said it.

Besides, by the time you finish this article, your brain might have tricked you into thinking that he did say it (more on that later), so let's just go ahead and leave it in. Okay?]

Read on, if you can handle it.