The delusion involved in the fourth myth may shock many - my computer contains nothing of value.
No one embodied that myth in the eyes of many more surely than Thomas Edison, the very symbol of the tinkering genius alone (supposedly) in his lab.
Those with longer memories remember him as a film-music wizard whose scores for Paris, Texas (1984) and the Southern blues myth Crossroads (1986), among many, brought a spooky desolation to Hollywood storytelling.
Too many today chase the American myth of unlimited potential by denying biological limitations, including performance enhancing drugs in sports, searching for self-esteem with cosmetic surgery, or pushing the frontiers of reproductive medicine.
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Many presumed truths are exposed as myth, which makes the chapter alone worth the price of the book.
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The myth that tramps created tramp art still draws many collectors, Wertkin says.
This myth is fundamentally flawed and masks real challenges faced by many Asian Americans.
To be fair, many of these were attempts to dispel the myth of the naturally-gifted mover, but the need to dispel the myth speaks volumes about its ubiquity.
The many British contemporary accounts of the truces help scotch another myth: that the authorities kept all knowledge of fraternisation from the public at home lest it damage morale.
The myth of "a waiting period" to report a missing person still lingers, and many families are turned away by officials and forced to begin their journey on their own without any direction or support.
But the new noises coming from people like Mr Kolodziejczyk, an economist at a coal mine near Katowice, may weaken the myth that Poland is entirely homogeneous and may spur a trend towards decentralisation that many supporters of the new government have been urging.
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