Lists & hierarchies

Lists are used widely in nonfiction: science, history, cooking, manufacturing, all sorts of domains. Most of the time we assume these lists are accurate and true. But that's not always the case!

Furthermore: lists are also used in fiction, too. In fiction, the goal is to make an imaginary list sound plausible.

So let's go on a little side-trip to experiment with fictitious lists and the idea of deception.

Here's a list of things that are not in front of me:

If I had told you that was a list of things genuinely in front of me, would you have believed me?

Why or why not? (There are some possible answers to this, which we'll explore shortly.)

How did you go? Is it obvious the list is made up? Why?

• One clue might be that specific items are implausible: rare, impossible, weird.
• Another clue might be that the items don't belong together in any obvious or plausible way.