We don't challenge them, sometimes for years. Or I didn't. And when we do, we learn they have little or no basis in reality.
This is not a deep post, pondering the meaning of life. The truths in question were described by Andrew in a recent post as Debunking myths.
I am not certain that myths is the right word. Urban legends? Old Wives' Tales? All three?
I think all of us grew up with some of them, but I also think that they are cultural and generational tales.
One of my sisters-in-law and an older friend firmly believe that going out in the cold (particularly with wet hair) will give you a cold. Fans at night are dangerous too for similar reasons.
Slightly off topic, the friend in question has a firmly held belief which always amazes me. He tells me that cats are filthy animals, and this is confirmed by how often they wash!!!
The same sister-in-law tells me that sitting on cold things (particularly concrete) will give you piles.
My mother insisted that if we went swimming immediately after a meal we would develop cramps and drown. Immediately. I am pretty certain that one has been disproved.
Flowers should be put out of a sickroom at night because they give off carbon dioxide and would asphyxiate the patient. I suspect the bedroom would have to be tiny, the patient very unwell, and the plants huge or numerous for that to be valid.
I was also told that if I let any part of me (like my hand or arm) dangle out of a moving car a passing car WOULD cut it off. I am too ashamed to admit how old I was before I realised if the car was that close we were going to be in an accident anyway.
And recently I read one I had never heard. The author of an autobiography I am reading at the moment said that growing up in Britain in the 1920s he was told not to lie down and fall asleep in a field with poppies in it, or he would be drugged by opium and never wake up.
And again from an earlier Britain, one of Charles Darwin's granddaughters said that her contemporaries were told that if the skin between your thumb and your forefinger was cut, or even scratched, you would develop lockjaw and die.
How about you? Did you grow up with these? Or with different ones? Please let me know in the comments.
This is not a deep post, pondering the meaning of life. The truths in question were described by Andrew in a recent post as Debunking myths.
I am not certain that myths is the right word. Urban legends? Old Wives' Tales? All three?
I think all of us grew up with some of them, but I also think that they are cultural and generational tales.
One of my sisters-in-law and an older friend firmly believe that going out in the cold (particularly with wet hair) will give you a cold. Fans at night are dangerous too for similar reasons.
Slightly off topic, the friend in question has a firmly held belief which always amazes me. He tells me that cats are filthy animals, and this is confirmed by how often they wash!!!
The same sister-in-law tells me that sitting on cold things (particularly concrete) will give you piles.
My mother insisted that if we went swimming immediately after a meal we would develop cramps and drown. Immediately. I am pretty certain that one has been disproved.
Flowers should be put out of a sickroom at night because they give off carbon dioxide and would asphyxiate the patient. I suspect the bedroom would have to be tiny, the patient very unwell, and the plants huge or numerous for that to be valid.
I was also told that if I let any part of me (like my hand or arm) dangle out of a moving car a passing car WOULD cut it off. I am too ashamed to admit how old I was before I realised if the car was that close we were going to be in an accident anyway.
And recently I read one I had never heard. The author of an autobiography I am reading at the moment said that growing up in Britain in the 1920s he was told not to lie down and fall asleep in a field with poppies in it, or he would be drugged by opium and never wake up.
And again from an earlier Britain, one of Charles Darwin's granddaughters said that her contemporaries were told that if the skin between your thumb and your forefinger was cut, or even scratched, you would develop lockjaw and die.
How about you? Did you grow up with these? Or with different ones? Please let me know in the comments.
