Rumor
[[File:WPA-Rumor-Poster.jpg|200px|thumb|right|A 1930s Works Progress Administration poster depicts a man with WPA shovel attacking a wolf labeled 'rumor.]] A rumor (American English), or rumour (British English; see spelling differences; derived from Latin 'noise'), is "a tall tale of explanations of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern." In the social sciences, a rumor involves a form of a statement whose veracity is not quickly or ever confirmed. In addition, some scholars have identified rumor as a subset of propaganda. Sociology, psychology, and communication studies have widely varying definitions of rumor. Rumors are also often discussed with regard to misinformation and disinformation (the former often seen as simply false and the latter seen as deliberately false, though usually from a government source given to the media or a foreign government). Early work French and German social science research on rumor locates the modern scholarly definition of it to the pioneering work of the German William Stern in 1902. Stern experimented on rumor involving a "chain of subjects" who passed a story from "mouth to ear" without the right to repeat or explain it. He found that the story was shortened and changed