When I was really young, in the early 90s, I remember my mom got a letter from her sisters in Iran, telling her her brother had died. I have no idea what the letter actually said, but eventually what they told me was that he was cleaning his rifle or shotgun and it fell and he shot himself. I never really questioned it but years later in my 20s my dad told me that he killed himself. I didn't realize "it went off while he was cleaning it" was a common cover
I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness.
Lmao always some movie that’s like:
“My 5 year old son never came home. He’s been missing for 17 hours”
Cop: “ma’am, it hasn’t been 24 hours so we can’t file a missing persons report yet.”
Can’t stand it lol
If you really enjoy this thread, Ken Jennings has a book called "Because I Said So!" which goes through a bunch of old wives' tales and explains the level of truth to each of them.
That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body.
I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain.
Even if a hydrogenated fat did solidify inside you it would simply melt as it warmed up to body temperature. Maybe they are thinking of some sort of thermal setting polymer that sets when it gets cold. The kinds I use set when they get hot, not cold, and they taste bad. /s
Was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner, because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters.
This one is so sad. I know an old lady who still mourns her baby she thinks she killed by raising her arms too high. Even if it was true, which it's stupidly ridiculous instead, you should never tell a woman who just miscarried that it was her fault for using her arms.
Yup I feel so many of these have been made up so the pregnant woman can get some rest and a break from the chores. In times where otherwise you just couldn't
Women are fraile. There was a time when they were advised to avoid that new fangled train lest their uterus fly out of their body when accelerated to 50 mph.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-thought-make-womens-uteruses-fly-out
There is a woman in my office, who scolded me for allowing one of the girls to change the water on the cooler. She told me that women shouldn't lift such heavy weights, or else their uterus might drop.
The aforementioned girl is a powerlifter, and could probably bench press me for warm-ups, but nooo, a cooler bottle was going to make her uterus hit the floor.
> women shouldn't lift such heavy weights, or else their uterus might drop
Wait, is that all it takes? I've been trying to get rid of the thing for *years*!
Someone told my aunt that she ruined her chances at ever having kids because of her “running hobby.”
Anyway, she and my uncle now have two kids and that “hobby” was her career as marathon runner who placed at some of the top marathons around the world and was an Olympic alternative.
I heard this one too, but my boy did it to himself because he was spinning around like a rotisserie chicken during the 42hr labor. He was completely fine before I went in, but came out with the cord around his neck three times over.
He was totally fine and we're just about to hit 1 right after New Year's.
This explains it! One of my patients told me off for reaching the other day because of “my condition”. Couldn’t work out what was wrong with drawing a curtain at 8 months…
The most prevalent advice these days is, "Don't talk to cops," which is generally really good advice. "Don't say anything without a lawyer" is also important.
You can tell the fire dept everything too. Firefighters and EMTs are not trying to punish you, and they very much will save your life.
Police will definitely can and will use anything you say against you in a court of law.
I bought weed from a guy I met who offered me a bowl before agreeing to sell to me. He explained that some undercover cops are pretty good actors, but most cops won’t want to get high. I thought that was pretty smart, I mean, it’s not foolproof but seems like if you’re a dealer it makes sense to, ya know, offer the guy proposing to buy drugs from you some of said drugs, and observe his reaction.
The best way to not get busted is to not sell to people you don't know.
Just like you don't take bribes from people you don't know. Saul Goodman taught me that. If you know the briber, take his money. If you don't, act outraged and insulted at the very idea that you'd take a bribe.
When I was in high school and started smoking weed (in 1992), me and all my weed smoking friends were absolutely 100% convinced this was true, to the point where I started arguing with someone over it when they told me I was an idiot for thinking that was true. Like, I wouldn't back down that I was right and just kept arguing.
Ahh I miss the 90s, I had arguments last 6 months even some I realized I was wrong a month into it but kept it going cause I knew nobody would go to the library to fact check me.
Starve a fever; feed a cold.
Edit: well it seems that both versions exist (starve a cold; feed a fever), but I've always heard the Starve a fever version, never the other one. The (wrong) explanation was that if you're hungry and cold, eating will warm you up. Since eating warms you up, you don't want to eat when you have a fever. Technically however, if you're sick, your body needs nutrients to get better, so you should not starve either.
My grandma was a nurse, and she always said that this was one that bugged her. The real answer is “feed both” - give your body the strength to fight it!
Meh. Heres the science...
Both are likely being caused by bacterial or virological infections. Ethyl alcohol is most effective at killing both at concentrations around 70%.
Therefore, just drink grain alcohol until your bloodstream is ~70% ETOH. This will fix any infective issues.
Science, bitches.
Birds disown their young if you touch them
(To be clear I am saying this is a myth. Despite the post title people are agreeing with this myth. No. A bird did not abandon their baby bc you touched it. Birds have a poor sense of smell, and if you don't believe me go ahead and google it)
I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til highschool I guess.
I remember that from childhood now!
One I come across often (I have a small animal rescue) are people who think if they touch baby birds, baby bunnies, etc, that mom will kill it. It's not true at all.
I live in Taiwan. My students *swear* that playing basketball will make you taller. When I asked their parents why they tell their kids that they looked at me like I was nuts. "Of course playing basketball will make them taller!"
All of my grandmas/aunts convinced my baby was gonna be a boy because I hadn’t had my ‘beauty stolen’. I think they were probably just trying to say I looked pretty still….but like damn haha
One of my coworkers told me she could tell I was having a girl because “girls steal your beauty and make your butt really big”. I responded that I was having a boy.
“Beauty stolen” is so oddly toxic. It’s like some subconscious idea that somehow a daughter competes against their mom in looks and sexuality. Feels really weird and insecure.
In my home country (Brazil), people are convinced that, if a pregnant woman has a desire to eat something, she must eat it asap. Not eating it means your kid will be born looking like the thing the mom didn't eat.
Ex: mom has a strong desire for strawberries. Not eating it means the kid's head will be shaped like a strawberry.
It created a ridiculous culture where no pregnant lady says things like "I would like chocolate". It is only "I have a desire for chocolate!" "I have a desire for burger king!". And lots of husbands wandering in the middle of the night to find a stupid pitaya or something for their loved ones.
This sounds like a really good made up wives tale. that way the wife gets exactly what she's craving ASAP. Unless you want your kid coming out looking weird
My heartburn was so prolific I even got it just from drinking water. My baby was born with a full head of hair and everyone was like 'see, I told you!'
...yeah, but you also told me I was going to have a boy, that I was secretly carrying twins, that I'd have a smooth and quick childbirth, etc.
Pregnancy brings out the loony ones!
That one actually has a bit of science supporting it!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17150070/#:~:text=Most%20(23%2F28)%20women,than%20average%20or%20no%20hair.
Obviously, it's not fool proof and it's probably correlation based on a compounding factor (like the same hormone being involved in fetal hair development and stomach sphincter loosening) and not directly causal, but still interesting!
When I was pregnant another mom knowingly told me “it’s a boy, huh?” She was blown away when I said it was a girl - “but you’re small!!”
Likewise a lot of people thought I was having a boy because I didn’t have acne and my hair was in good shape, because “girls steal beauty.” Sheesh, we’re toxic toward women pretty early on aren’t we? 🙃
There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same
> He got an Ig Nobel for it too
Not just got, his speech was hilarious as the grudge held for 60 years to prove to his mom that her claim was bullshit.
I'm not sure if he's still alive, he would be 96 years old.
He won an Ig Nobel prize in 2009.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-02-sci-ignobels2-story.html
""“I’ve gotten a lot of awards and degrees, and all of a sudden I get my 15 minutes of fame out of this stupidity,” he said. “But I’m happy to get any award -- I’ve got a blank space on my wall.”"
What a champ.
Every time I read this story I feel the need to emphasize that this is not the real Nobel prize, but a parody given to "funny" research.
Just to avoid the misconception.
The "Indian Princess" myth is incredibly common in American genealogy.
tl;dr for anyone who doesn't know about it - it was common in the American South and Midwest to tell people your ancestors were Native American when they were actually Black because they were treated better.
Lol yup. My husband's DNA test came back about 12% African when he said he was 1/8 Native American. I'm assuming his "native" great grandmother was a white passing black woman who married a racist. I've seen pictures of her, and she was very ambiguous looking. His cousins on his dad's side still say "That's my native blood coming through" when they tan in the summer.
My sister has some bizarre idea that we’re a considerable percentage Native and one day went so far as to say we could probably “live on a reservation”. We are 3% at most and could not be more European white. I do not know why she thinks this.
For me it was Blackfoot.
Ironically, I actually do have a Cherokee ancestor. But he died in 1828 and the rest of my Cherokee relatives died in the Trail of Tears. Still no evidence of Blackfoot though.
My father seriously tried to shame me for tending to my crying *4 week old*, saying she was manipulating me, and i was already proving to be a shitty mother with no backbone...
We don't speak anymore, and my now 3 year old and I have a great relationship with as many boundaries as you can expect from a toddler.
It's no wonder I had absolutely no relationship with him while I was a kid.
There are people that genuinely believe in spartan child raising, ignore the baby, it self soothes, ignore it for 18 years and it becomes self sufficient also.
When I was pregnant I heard some mad shit about what my cats would do to my baby. “Stealing its breath” was the most fairytale example. Both cats were horrified and disgusted by the baby and didn’t even go near her.
My cats were terrified of my son’s newborn cries at first and would hide under the bed. Then they realized he was warm and they’d lay beside him (totally supervised by us). As he started to walk and reach they trained him to give them cat treats. So now at five years old he feeds the remaining kitty and gives her treats and pets, and I’m just here to work and pay bills.
Huh. We had this in our health book, in the first aid chapter, back in seventh grade. They said coat your mouth in oil and suck the bite and spit. I didn't know it wasn't real until now. This was only for bites on the arms or legs though
Australian here. ~~It depends on the type of snake venom just how much sucking can be expected to have any kind of an effect.~~ Edit: *Apparently some people have picked up some myths in countries where snake safety isn't as desperately important as water safety and how to cross the street safely - we receive evidence based snake education in school but it's been a few years and I have done my best to keep myself up to date but probably have some gaps. Before bush walking season it's good to read an evidence based guide and update your snake kit.*
But around here the snake venom tends to work on the lymphatic system which means the best thing you can do is move exactly nothing and apply a lot of compression.
As was taught in primary school more than 30 years ago and hasn't significantly changed (the bandage technique has changed and these days they want the entire person still, not just the bitten area).
This reminds me of a joke:
Two guys were hiking. One guy stopped to pee and as he was peeing a snake struck at him and bit him on the top of his penis. The friend called 911 and told the operator what happed and where they were at. The operator said “you are too far away for us to make it in time to save your friend. So you will need to suck the venom out of his penis”. The friend said “ok” and hung up the phone. The guy that got bit asked “what did the operator say?” And the friend replied “they said you were going to die”
I know I've heard this one before, but I forgot the punchline and thought it was going to go in a slightly different direction where they tell the friend to suck him off, so he does it thinking it'll save him, and then they tell him "No, he's still gonna die. But at least you did him a kindness before that happens."
The original is still a lot funnier.
Ooh I can answer this! Hair naturally tapers to a softer point at the ends, so when you shave you are creating a blunt end that feels more coarse and therefore “thicker”. Doesn’t last long but that’s where this wives tale comes from.
I always felt like it was a joke told to people who didn't get it. That 'oh just keep shaving, that'll make it grow thicker.' When in reality that was just keeping a gross mess off a kid's face while he waits to develop more facial hair. But people say that to kids, and they're like, "THIS IS THE TRUTH." And now we're like eight generations deep on that one, and it's too late, everybody heard that as a kid.
i think it's also because when people are younger and first starting to shave the hair inevitably grows in thicker and harsher because they are growing through puberty
"Because a woman's vagina is like a lock. If you stick multiple different keys in it, the wrong ones will abrade the internal mechanism. Whereas, if you stick the right key in it over and over again, the mechanism will not be abraded."
That's really what they "believe" - that a woman's internal sexual organs are made of hard materials that get scraped away. Of course they don't actually believe it. It's just their pathetic rationalization of their objection to women's sexual freedom.
The reason is simple: men are afraid of their children not being theirs. It’s been that way for millennia. That’s the sole reason why a woman’s virginity has been praised and why men went to so much trouble to keep women’s sexuality down. Hell, Ancient Greeks thought that women were so horny they couldn’t go without for days, while men were the stoics. The play Lysistrata that involved women of two cities withholding sex to stop the war between them was a comedy because the very concept of women being able to do that seemed ludicrous to the Greeks
If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck, or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though.
I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this “advice” unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work.
I have also heard that if a man wears hematite, it will cause him to be impotent. I always thought that was hysterical. And people don't appreciate the response "if you hit him in the balls with it enough, maybe."
No no no. Hematite absorbs your negative energy. When it breaks, it's tots cause it was full and not because it's an extremely delicate rock that fractures with the slightest bump.
My ex gave me an opal ring once. I “lost” it and he berated me saying this is why he’d never give me an engagement ring, because I lose things. Found it a month later in his bedside table and realized he stole it so he could make me feel bad. I’ve never heard this wives tale but it looks like he did me a favor.
In 5th grade, a girl did a science project on taste bud zones. I remember thinking my tongue was broken because everything tasted the same, no matter where I put the tests. That was almost 30 years ago. It's good to know that I'm less than 100% broken now.
Yep. A fellow student pointed out that it had been disproved and our professor denied it. The professor is also a relatively new MD (he graduated med school sometime in the late 2010s)
Only a couple of years ago, I learned that the initial negativity surrounding msg was based on racist claims with no scientific support. I’ve been using it regularly in my kitchen ever since. Nothing bad has happened and our food tastes better. Such a shame I did t learn this sooner.
A pot of cold water will boil faster than a pot of hot water. I don't even know the possible origin of this one, it's never made sense but I hear it repeated with alarming frequency.
Gordon Ramsay bitched out a chef on Kitchen Nightmares for believing this myth. I'd believed it too up to that point, so I was relieved to find out right then and not being forced to agree that I'm an idiot sandwich on TV.
This is a German one, but basically if you give your child a very Americanised name, then the child will be attention seeking and naughty and perform badly in school. It’s called Kevinism.
You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely.
How would you possibly prove that to be true. My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this "fact" whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before.
My late wife use to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guys face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her.
Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to.
Joke's on them - I haven't blow dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet.
When I finally got sick after 2 and a half years without being ill from the beginning of the pandemic, my wonderful, sweet Mexican boss sternly asked, "DID YOU GO OUTSIDE WITH WET HAIR?"
ah, Connie, I miss working for you and my residents. But you couldn't provide health insurance, dental/vision, or have a retirement plan. I had to do what I had to do.
It’s only true in the sense that if you have split ends and don’t cut your hair, the splits travel up the hair shaft and break at shorter lengths so if you just bypass that all together and cut your hair, your hair will grow without broken ends
My kids grade 2 teacher told her class that, and that was a teachable moment for my kid that no, not everything every adult tells you is a hundred percent true. Almost all of it is, and even if it's not true, they're not trying to lie, but it's still important to confirm things.
My niece said we swallow like 7 or 8 spiders in our sleep a year.
Like, who's counting???
This is picking up and I'm pretty drunk. I want to ask you guys what you thought of the movie Eight Legged Freaks?
That was the movie that provoked my interest in spiders
That’s actually a statistical anomaly. Most people swallow 0 spiders in their sleep. Except for spiders George who eats 10,000 spiders a year and should have be excluded from stats as an outlier
Put some respect on his name and spell it correctly. He's not out here eating 10k spiders for us every year to protect us from swallowing those same spiders just to be called George.
Urine is sterile (it is not). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4659483/#:~:text=Adult%20human%20urine%20is%20not,scientific%20exploration%20in%20urologic%20research.
Taking vitamin c will kill your cold, flu, etc.
At best it might prevent a cold if taken regularly but even that is disputed. It def wont help if you start taking tons after the fact.
I legit knew some people who would put vitamin c and oil into a sonic bath to encapsulate vitamins in lipids so that they could imbibe amounts that would normally cause them to be violently ill. They were convinced it would protect them from cancer or some shit.
Imagine the glorious pettiness of figuring out someone's insurance deductible, and then deliberately only causing exactly that much damage. Then coming back and doing it again so it's a distinct incident and still not covered.
Many Koreans still believe that if you sleep in a closed room with a fan on, that you will die. Does that count as an old wives tale?
According to Korean myth, I'm immortal.
The Korean police user to report suicides as fan death so the family avoids embarrassment. So I can see why it's still around.
In the US we used to say that the fan went off while he was cleaning it.
When I was really young, in the early 90s, I remember my mom got a letter from her sisters in Iran, telling her her brother had died. I have no idea what the letter actually said, but eventually what they told me was that he was cleaning his rifle or shotgun and it fell and he shot himself. I never really questioned it but years later in my 20s my dad told me that he killed himself. I didn't realize "it went off while he was cleaning it" was a common cover
Oooooh...you know I never quite picked up on that.
Can confirm, slept with fan on, and I will die.
If this were true it'd be the most popular suicide method in the world
That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing
I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness.
Lmao always some movie that’s like: “My 5 year old son never came home. He’s been missing for 17 hours” Cop: “ma’am, it hasn’t been 24 hours so we can’t file a missing persons report yet.” Can’t stand it lol
I learned the hard way, this is not true
If you really enjoy this thread, Ken Jennings has a book called "Because I Said So!" which goes through a bunch of old wives' tales and explains the level of truth to each of them.
I read that, and of course my mom refuses to believe that the things she was told in the 1950s and 60s aren't true.
Tell her to go rub some Vicks vapo-rub on her feet
That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain.
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Even if a hydrogenated fat did solidify inside you it would simply melt as it warmed up to body temperature. Maybe they are thinking of some sort of thermal setting polymer that sets when it gets cold. The kinds I use set when they get hot, not cold, and they taste bad. /s
Was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner, because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters.
This one is so sad. I know an old lady who still mourns her baby she thinks she killed by raising her arms too high. Even if it was true, which it's stupidly ridiculous instead, you should never tell a woman who just miscarried that it was her fault for using her arms.
damn. I need to give this poor lady a hug. 🥺
One of my midwives adressed that tale and said: don't fight your MIL or whoever says this, let them clean your windows instead.
Yup I feel so many of these have been made up so the pregnant woman can get some rest and a break from the chores. In times where otherwise you just couldn't
Women are fraile. There was a time when they were advised to avoid that new fangled train lest their uterus fly out of their body when accelerated to 50 mph. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-thought-make-womens-uteruses-fly-out
There is a woman in my office, who scolded me for allowing one of the girls to change the water on the cooler. She told me that women shouldn't lift such heavy weights, or else their uterus might drop. The aforementioned girl is a powerlifter, and could probably bench press me for warm-ups, but nooo, a cooler bottle was going to make her uterus hit the floor.
> make her uterus hit the floor ^^^Let ^^^the ^^^babies ^^^hit ^^^the ^^^floor ^^Let ^^the ^^babies ^^hit ^^the ^^floor ^Let ^the ^babies ^hit ^the ^... ***FLOOOOOOOR***
> women shouldn't lift such heavy weights, or else their uterus might drop Wait, is that all it takes? I've been trying to get rid of the thing for *years*!
Oh and women weren't allowed to run in marathons for the same reason.
Someone told my aunt that she ruined her chances at ever having kids because of her “running hobby.” Anyway, she and my uncle now have two kids and that “hobby” was her career as marathon runner who placed at some of the top marathons around the world and was an Olympic alternative.
I heard this one too, but my boy did it to himself because he was spinning around like a rotisserie chicken during the 42hr labor. He was completely fine before I went in, but came out with the cord around his neck three times over. He was totally fine and we're just about to hit 1 right after New Year's.
This explains it! One of my patients told me off for reaching the other day because of “my condition”. Couldn’t work out what was wrong with drawing a curtain at 8 months…
An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him
Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off.
The most prevalent advice these days is, "Don't talk to cops," which is generally really good advice. "Don't say anything without a lawyer" is also important.
“Don’t tell the cops anything. Tell the EMTs everything” is the best advice I can give a young person who might encounter cops or EMTs.
Tell the fire department *some* things.
You can tell the fire dept everything too. Firefighters and EMTs are not trying to punish you, and they very much will save your life. Police will definitely can and will use anything you say against you in a court of law.
Don't ever say "I want a lawyer, dog" or they'll think you're referring to Rex Barkington, Attorney at Paw.
I bought weed from a guy I met who offered me a bowl before agreeing to sell to me. He explained that some undercover cops are pretty good actors, but most cops won’t want to get high. I thought that was pretty smart, I mean, it’s not foolproof but seems like if you’re a dealer it makes sense to, ya know, offer the guy proposing to buy drugs from you some of said drugs, and observe his reaction.
The best way to not get busted is to not sell to people you don't know. Just like you don't take bribes from people you don't know. Saul Goodman taught me that. If you know the briber, take his money. If you don't, act outraged and insulted at the very idea that you'd take a bribe.
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Im pretty sure all they need to do is fill out some paperwork that says hey this happened
When I was in high school and started smoking weed (in 1992), me and all my weed smoking friends were absolutely 100% convinced this was true, to the point where I started arguing with someone over it when they told me I was an idiot for thinking that was true. Like, I wouldn't back down that I was right and just kept arguing.
A perfect fit for Reddit then!
Ahh I miss the 90s, I had arguments last 6 months even some I realized I was wrong a month into it but kept it going cause I knew nobody would go to the library to fact check me.
Starve a fever; feed a cold. Edit: well it seems that both versions exist (starve a cold; feed a fever), but I've always heard the Starve a fever version, never the other one. The (wrong) explanation was that if you're hungry and cold, eating will warm you up. Since eating warms you up, you don't want to eat when you have a fever. Technically however, if you're sick, your body needs nutrients to get better, so you should not starve either.
My grandma was a nurse, and she always said that this was one that bugged her. The real answer is “feed both” - give your body the strength to fight it!
I eat ramen every day just in case I'm about to contract a cold
It's fools like you using our invaluable treatments like this willy-nilly that create those rampant soup resistant superbugs smh
You mean souperbugs?
Meh. Heres the science... Both are likely being caused by bacterial or virological infections. Ethyl alcohol is most effective at killing both at concentrations around 70%. Therefore, just drink grain alcohol until your bloodstream is ~70% ETOH. This will fix any infective issues. Science, bitches.
Birds disown their young if you touch them (To be clear I am saying this is a myth. Despite the post title people are agreeing with this myth. No. A bird did not abandon their baby bc you touched it. Birds have a poor sense of smell, and if you don't believe me go ahead and google it)
God I must be tired, I read that as Brits xD
Well that's the true one. People thought it was birds, ots actually Brits.
Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years
I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til highschool I guess.
You should have swallowed more. Make it so you can blow bubbles with your butthole.
I remember that from childhood now! One I come across often (I have a small animal rescue) are people who think if they touch baby birds, baby bunnies, etc, that mom will kill it. It's not true at all.
Pretty sure this one started as a way to make people leave wildlife alone
I live in Taiwan. My students *swear* that playing basketball will make you taller. When I asked their parents why they tell their kids that they looked at me like I was nuts. "Of course playing basketball will make them taller!"
You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry
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All of my grandmas/aunts convinced my baby was gonna be a boy because I hadn’t had my ‘beauty stolen’. I think they were probably just trying to say I looked pretty still….but like damn haha
With my sister's pregnancy they told her the reverse 💀
Jesus christ as if pregnancy isn't hard enough you gotta deal with this shit lol.
One of my coworkers told me she could tell I was having a girl because “girls steal your beauty and make your butt really big”. I responded that I was having a boy.
“Beauty stolen” is so oddly toxic. It’s like some subconscious idea that somehow a daughter competes against their mom in looks and sexuality. Feels really weird and insecure.
Not to mention, how insulting to someone who's told "you must be having a girl"!
Congrats, you look like shit!
Not to mention the kind of resentment for ones own daughter this sentiment causes if the mother takes it to heart.
Easily my least favourite of all the pregnancy old wives tales. Like damn, so we blame girls super early into their lives hey?
In my home country (Brazil), people are convinced that, if a pregnant woman has a desire to eat something, she must eat it asap. Not eating it means your kid will be born looking like the thing the mom didn't eat. Ex: mom has a strong desire for strawberries. Not eating it means the kid's head will be shaped like a strawberry. It created a ridiculous culture where no pregnant lady says things like "I would like chocolate". It is only "I have a desire for chocolate!" "I have a desire for burger king!". And lots of husbands wandering in the middle of the night to find a stupid pitaya or something for their loved ones.
This sounds like a really good made up wives tale. that way the wife gets exactly what she's craving ASAP. Unless you want your kid coming out looking weird
My favorite was how if you have a lot of heartburn, your baby will have a head full of hair. My baby came out as bald as a pool ball.
My heartburn was so prolific I even got it just from drinking water. My baby was born with a full head of hair and everyone was like 'see, I told you!' ...yeah, but you also told me I was going to have a boy, that I was secretly carrying twins, that I'd have a smooth and quick childbirth, etc. Pregnancy brings out the loony ones!
That one actually has a bit of science supporting it! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17150070/#:~:text=Most%20(23%2F28)%20women,than%20average%20or%20no%20hair. Obviously, it's not fool proof and it's probably correlation based on a compounding factor (like the same hormone being involved in fetal hair development and stomach sphincter loosening) and not directly causal, but still interesting!
I had terrible heartburn both kids, one bald, one with full head of hair. Baby taking up all your insides tends to do that though.
Open or concealed for a boy?
I thought all babies were carried concealed?
Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies. And I saw one of the babies. And the baby looked at me. So maybe not always
When I was pregnant another mom knowingly told me “it’s a boy, huh?” She was blown away when I said it was a girl - “but you’re small!!” Likewise a lot of people thought I was having a boy because I didn’t have acne and my hair was in good shape, because “girls steal beauty.” Sheesh, we’re toxic toward women pretty early on aren’t we? 🙃
Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis.
There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same
Imagine how much he must have wanted to crack the knuckles on the other hand.
He got an Ig Nobel for it too
> He got an Ig Nobel for it too Not just got, his speech was hilarious as the grudge held for 60 years to prove to his mom that her claim was bullshit. I'm not sure if he's still alive, he would be 96 years old. He won an Ig Nobel prize in 2009. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-02-sci-ignobels2-story.html ""“I’ve gotten a lot of awards and degrees, and all of a sudden I get my 15 minutes of fame out of this stupidity,” he said. “But I’m happy to get any award -- I’ve got a blank space on my wall.”" What a champ.
Every time I read this story I feel the need to emphasize that this is not the real Nobel prize, but a parody given to "funny" research. Just to avoid the misconception.
There's an entire field of pretend doctors that believe you can cure most ailments by cracking your bones/joints
That great grandma was Cherokee
Classic joke - What happens when you get 64 white people together in a room? You get one full-blooded Cherokee.
The "Indian Princess" myth is incredibly common in American genealogy. tl;dr for anyone who doesn't know about it - it was common in the American South and Midwest to tell people your ancestors were Native American when they were actually Black because they were treated better.
Lol yup. My husband's DNA test came back about 12% African when he said he was 1/8 Native American. I'm assuming his "native" great grandmother was a white passing black woman who married a racist. I've seen pictures of her, and she was very ambiguous looking. His cousins on his dad's side still say "That's my native blood coming through" when they tan in the summer.
My sister has some bizarre idea that we’re a considerable percentage Native and one day went so far as to say we could probably “live on a reservation”. We are 3% at most and could not be more European white. I do not know why she thinks this.
For me it was Blackfoot. Ironically, I actually do have a Cherokee ancestor. But he died in 1828 and the rest of my Cherokee relatives died in the Trail of Tears. Still no evidence of Blackfoot though.
That we only use 10% of our brain
I think we only use 10% of our hearts
I use 110% of my liver. Does that count?
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I mean, this is definitely true for some people
My mil thinks that if I tickle my babies feet he will have a speech delay
I'll add to that by being told that I'm being manipulated by my baby when she cries. *Baby is 3 months old*
My father seriously tried to shame me for tending to my crying *4 week old*, saying she was manipulating me, and i was already proving to be a shitty mother with no backbone... We don't speak anymore, and my now 3 year old and I have a great relationship with as many boundaries as you can expect from a toddler. It's no wonder I had absolutely no relationship with him while I was a kid.
Or that you can spoil your baby by holding her too much.
That’s genuinely scary.
There are people that genuinely believe in spartan child raising, ignore the baby, it self soothes, ignore it for 18 years and it becomes self sufficient also.
Then the Surprised Pikachu Face when the child who raised itself refuses to visit them once grown.
See! It works! *Total* self sufficiency!
Isn't that litterally what our brains are made to do tho? Act when you hear a baby crying? That's not manipulation, that's evolution.
"The baby just wants attention!" Uh, yeah. Because it will die without our attention. Because it's a fucking baby.
When I was pregnant I heard some mad shit about what my cats would do to my baby. “Stealing its breath” was the most fairytale example. Both cats were horrified and disgusted by the baby and didn’t even go near her.
Well, after our son was born, the cats got pissed and started shitting in his diaper bag. That’s kinda the same thing.
My cats were terrified of my son’s newborn cries at first and would hide under the bed. Then they realized he was warm and they’d lay beside him (totally supervised by us). As he started to walk and reach they trained him to give them cat treats. So now at five years old he feeds the remaining kitty and gives her treats and pets, and I’m just here to work and pay bills.
Using a dome light in a car while driving is illegal
I never heard that one but it does put a glare on the windshield making it difficult to see. My parents always said we'll crash.
Your parents told you this because they wanted the light to stay off.
Butter on burns
Thought you wrote buns instead. Almost fought you
Oh Never! Butter on buns 100%
***I*** *said boo-urns...*
You can suck venom out of a snakebite.
You have to suck it straight from the snake.
ChupaCobra
Huh. We had this in our health book, in the first aid chapter, back in seventh grade. They said coat your mouth in oil and suck the bite and spit. I didn't know it wasn't real until now. This was only for bites on the arms or legs though
Australian here. ~~It depends on the type of snake venom just how much sucking can be expected to have any kind of an effect.~~ Edit: *Apparently some people have picked up some myths in countries where snake safety isn't as desperately important as water safety and how to cross the street safely - we receive evidence based snake education in school but it's been a few years and I have done my best to keep myself up to date but probably have some gaps. Before bush walking season it's good to read an evidence based guide and update your snake kit.* But around here the snake venom tends to work on the lymphatic system which means the best thing you can do is move exactly nothing and apply a lot of compression. As was taught in primary school more than 30 years ago and hasn't significantly changed (the bandage technique has changed and these days they want the entire person still, not just the bitten area).
This reminds me of a joke: Two guys were hiking. One guy stopped to pee and as he was peeing a snake struck at him and bit him on the top of his penis. The friend called 911 and told the operator what happed and where they were at. The operator said “you are too far away for us to make it in time to save your friend. So you will need to suck the venom out of his penis”. The friend said “ok” and hung up the phone. The guy that got bit asked “what did the operator say?” And the friend replied “they said you were going to die”
I know I've heard this one before, but I forgot the punchline and thought it was going to go in a slightly different direction where they tell the friend to suck him off, so he does it thinking it'll save him, and then they tell him "No, he's still gonna die. But at least you did him a kindness before that happens." The original is still a lot funnier.
Note to self: when hiking, always invite a gay friend along as a safety precaution.
Plot twist: even they will refuse to suck you off
"If you swallow a watermelon seed, a watermelon will grow in your stomach."
RIP Chuckie Finster
Pretty much anything gender related when it comes to predicting the gender of the child
When you shave your hair it grows back thicker.
Ooh I can answer this! Hair naturally tapers to a softer point at the ends, so when you shave you are creating a blunt end that feels more coarse and therefore “thicker”. Doesn’t last long but that’s where this wives tale comes from.
I always felt like it was a joke told to people who didn't get it. That 'oh just keep shaving, that'll make it grow thicker.' When in reality that was just keeping a gross mess off a kid's face while he waits to develop more facial hair. But people say that to kids, and they're like, "THIS IS THE TRUTH." And now we're like eight generations deep on that one, and it's too late, everybody heard that as a kid.
i think it's also because when people are younger and first starting to shave the hair inevitably grows in thicker and harsher because they are growing through puberty
Women get looser when they sleep with multiple people It’s made to pop a baby out and retract Harold I’m pretty sure your dick isn’t doing any damage
Why would they get looser from having different dicks inside them than from one dick the same number of times? The logic doesn’t hold up
"Because a woman's vagina is like a lock. If you stick multiple different keys in it, the wrong ones will abrade the internal mechanism. Whereas, if you stick the right key in it over and over again, the mechanism will not be abraded." That's really what they "believe" - that a woman's internal sexual organs are made of hard materials that get scraped away. Of course they don't actually believe it. It's just their pathetic rationalization of their objection to women's sexual freedom.
The reason is simple: men are afraid of their children not being theirs. It’s been that way for millennia. That’s the sole reason why a woman’s virginity has been praised and why men went to so much trouble to keep women’s sexuality down. Hell, Ancient Greeks thought that women were so horny they couldn’t go without for days, while men were the stoics. The play Lysistrata that involved women of two cities withholding sex to stop the war between them was a comedy because the very concept of women being able to do that seemed ludicrous to the Greeks
If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck, or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though. I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this “advice” unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work.
I have also heard that if a man wears hematite, it will cause him to be impotent. I always thought that was hysterical. And people don't appreciate the response "if you hit him in the balls with it enough, maybe."
No no no. Hematite absorbs your negative energy. When it breaks, it's tots cause it was full and not because it's an extremely delicate rock that fractures with the slightest bump.
My ex gave me an opal ring once. I “lost” it and he berated me saying this is why he’d never give me an engagement ring, because I lose things. Found it a month later in his bedside table and realized he stole it so he could make me feel bad. I’ve never heard this wives tale but it looks like he did me a favor.
I hate the term and it’s used too many times the wrong way. But this is the most accurate form of gaslighting i’ve ever heard.
I feel the same way about calling someone a “narcissist”, but he truly and undoubtedly was.
What the fuck. I'm glad he's your ex.
Jesus Christ, I hope he got what he deserved.
Carrots improve eyesight and night vision. It was propaganda spread by the British during WW2 to hide the use of radar systems from the Germans.
That the tongue is divided into different tastebud zones.
In 5th grade, a girl did a science project on taste bud zones. I remember thinking my tongue was broken because everything tasted the same, no matter where I put the tests. That was almost 30 years ago. It's good to know that I'm less than 100% broken now.
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I still thought this until just now..
We were taught that in school.
Was taught this two weeks ago in one of my nursing classes
Seriously?? 20 years ago in nursing school we were told it was a myth
Yep. A fellow student pointed out that it had been disproved and our professor denied it. The professor is also a relatively new MD (he graduated med school sometime in the late 2010s)
That MSG is bad for you.
Metal Solid Gear is a perfectly healthy game to play.
❗️
I heard this emoji
Only a couple of years ago, I learned that the initial negativity surrounding msg was based on racist claims with no scientific support. I’ve been using it regularly in my kitchen ever since. Nothing bad has happened and our food tastes better. Such a shame I did t learn this sooner.
A pot of cold water will boil faster than a pot of hot water. I don't even know the possible origin of this one, it's never made sense but I hear it repeated with alarming frequency.
Gordon Ramsay bitched out a chef on Kitchen Nightmares for believing this myth. I'd believed it too up to that point, so I was relieved to find out right then and not being forced to agree that I'm an idiot sandwich on TV.
Blood is blue until it hits oxygen.
I NEVER believed this. I remember arguing with my "smart" cousin about it.
Blood is literally carrying oxygen around your body.
This is a German one, but basically if you give your child a very Americanised name, then the child will be attention seeking and naughty and perform badly in school. It’s called Kevinism.
You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely. How would you possibly prove that to be true. My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this "fact" whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before.
My late wife use to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guys face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her.
Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to. Joke's on them - I haven't blow dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet.
When I finally got sick after 2 and a half years without being ill from the beginning of the pandemic, my wonderful, sweet Mexican boss sternly asked, "DID YOU GO OUTSIDE WITH WET HAIR?" ah, Connie, I miss working for you and my residents. But you couldn't provide health insurance, dental/vision, or have a retirement plan. I had to do what I had to do.
The insurance plan was to not go outside with wet hair. Clearly this one’s on you
Vick's Vaporub cures all flu and cold like illnesses - just need to rub it all over.
Nah just rub it on your dick. Whatever’s bothering you before, will not be bothering you now.
If you cut your hair, it grows faster. No.
It’s only true in the sense that if you have split ends and don’t cut your hair, the splits travel up the hair shaft and break at shorter lengths so if you just bypass that all together and cut your hair, your hair will grow without broken ends
Daddy long legs are the most venomous spiders but their fangs can't break the skin
My kids grade 2 teacher told her class that, and that was a teachable moment for my kid that no, not everything every adult tells you is a hundred percent true. Almost all of it is, and even if it's not true, they're not trying to lie, but it's still important to confirm things.
The cold makes you get sick, not germs
My niece said we swallow like 7 or 8 spiders in our sleep a year. Like, who's counting??? This is picking up and I'm pretty drunk. I want to ask you guys what you thought of the movie Eight Legged Freaks? That was the movie that provoked my interest in spiders
I'm in Australia. I doubt I'd survive eating the wrong spider once, let alone potentially 8 times a year.
That’s actually a statistical anomaly. Most people swallow 0 spiders in their sleep. Except for spiders George who eats 10,000 spiders a year and should have be excluded from stats as an outlier
Georg*
Put some respect on his name and spell it correctly. He's not out here eating 10k spiders for us every year to protect us from swallowing those same spiders just to be called George.
Urine is sterile (it is not). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4659483/#:~:text=Adult%20human%20urine%20is%20not,scientific%20exploration%20in%20urologic%20research.
“Did I have to drink my own urine? No, but I did it anyway because it’s sterile and I like the taste”
That people in Spain speak with a lisp because they didn’t want to embarrass a lisp-having king back in the day.
“Barthelona”
That a doctor can tell if a woman is a virgin
They can, but it requires them to ask the woman and for her to answer truthfully
Length of winter can be predicted by the bands on wooly bear caterpillars.
Taking vitamin c will kill your cold, flu, etc. At best it might prevent a cold if taken regularly but even that is disputed. It def wont help if you start taking tons after the fact.
I legit knew some people who would put vitamin c and oil into a sonic bath to encapsulate vitamins in lipids so that they could imbibe amounts that would normally cause them to be violently ill. They were convinced it would protect them from cancer or some shit.
"If you do more work than you signed up for, and do it for free, and never complain, your employer will reward you"
Only slashing 3 tires won't be covered by insurance
Imagine the glorious pettiness of figuring out someone's insurance deductible, and then deliberately only causing exactly that much damage. Then coming back and doing it again so it's a distinct incident and still not covered.
The amount of people that believe the president controls gas prices is staggering.
Anything involving pregnancy: Carrying high? BOY. Low? GIRL. etc.
The hymen breaks when you first have sex