An acquaintance of mine put up a very well constructed hoax page at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarpaulin_(fish)

in which he claimed that the modern English term "tarpaulin" was derived from the name of a now-extinct fish related to the stingray, possessed of durable waterproof skin, from which the first examples were made.

It stayed up for several days before admins caught on and deleted it.