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They always told us not to eat cherries and drink water. Why? Cherries will ferment in your stomach causing unbelievable pain resulting in getting your stomach pumped at the hospital.
Another good one is never to go outside in winter with wet hair or light clothing. You will catch a cold or death doing that.

Care to share a few?

Oh boy, Claws, have you opened up a can of worms with this one!  :teddyr:   Here are some of the doozies I was brought up with:

When I was a teenager and I was, um, "developing" my breasts would occasionally get itchy.  My mother told me not to scratch them otherwise I would develop cancer  :buggedout:

Never leave a wet sponge in the sink or your husband will be a drunk.

Don't sit at the corner of a table or you'll never get married.

If you drop a knife on the floor, the next visitor to your house will be a male.

Don't sweep crumbs out of the house with a broom, or you'll invite bad luck into your house.

Don't go to bed with wet hair or you'll catch a cold.

If a cat crosses your path regardless of colour, you have to spit at it 3 times to negate the bad luck

If a baby is hiccuping it means its nappy (diaper) is wet.

If a bird poos on your head it means you'll have good luck

Don't go to sleep with the window open  because the night air is no good for you.

If I remember any more, I'll post again.  Now that I think about it, I"m amazed I grew up with any critical thinking skills at all!   :buggedout:

Here are some:

-If you sit close to the TV while watching you'll become visually impaired
-If you sit on the computer a lot you will get cancer (because of radiation)
-It is bad luck to leave a loaf of bread upside-down
-The wall of china can be viewed from the moon (just thought of adding this)
-It is bad luck to give a name to a dead person
-If you eat fast you will become fat
-If you drink something cold when you're sweaty you will catch a cold
-If you drink something cold your teeth will fall off
-Drinking while eating is bad for your health
-In my country people say that someone has genetics of their uncle, biology says this isn't true  :tongueout:
-Going to hell or heaven
-god existing

I'll have to tell that one to my uncle.  He'll actually stop the car, turn around and take a different route to avoid crossing the path of a black cat   :bouncegiggle:

My mom used to tell me that if I opened my mouth real wide, my whole head would turn inside out  :teddyr:

Off the top of my head:

1. If you keep telling lies your teeth will turn black or your nose will grow  :buggedout:

According to my mom, reading with inadequate light will do the same thing. As far as I can tell, a headache is the worst thing either of these activities will give you.

Mom once tried to tell me that other activities would cause blindness, but I don't think she was serious. Back then, I was astounded that she knew what I was doing in the bathroom for twenty minutes.

As previously mentioned, that being cold gives you a cold.

Shaving hair makes it grow in thicker.

A hot drink will cool you down by making you sweat more.

Sugar makes kids hyperactive.

Your ability to swim is significantly impaired by eating a meal.

Wait a minute. What were you doing for 20 minutes in the bathroom, because I also know something boys do alone in the bathroom that old wives say causes blindness, but it never lasts 20 minutes, maybe 5 tops.

All in the technique.

That old "humans only use ten percent of their brain" crap.

Can we please put that to rest?  It's NOT TRUE.

In my country, at villages, when a farm animal dies of a disease or something the owner's like to sometimes blame their neighbors of putting a curse on their livestock. Stupid rednecks.

Human nature to pin your misfortune on some victim of circumstance. People too sophisticated to suspect witchcraft start blaming power lines, wind turbines and such. For that matter, it's no different from insisting somebody did something to your computer because it crashed shortly after he used it. People do it all the time.

The whole Groundhog sees his shadow thing...

I was told not to sit too close to the TV set as it would damage your eyesight.

Not to stand in front of the microwave because the radiation can cause sickness.

Never turn your car or boat against the sun as to do so was considered bad luck (this was my grandfather's belief). Honestly following that one sometimes today would likely cause many an accident IMO.

The groundhog thing bugs me. I mean, it's all in good fun, but I have yet to understand exactly what the rules of this custom are. Some people say seeing the shadow means early spring, some say no shadow means early spring, or alternately, seeing or not seeing (depending on who you ask) the shadow means about six more weeks of winter, which a calendar will tell you. Not that it matters. It's just a bit of fun, a tourist gimmick, an excuse for a winter festival. All good. I'd just like everybody to get it straight.

The idea that wet hair will make you sick. Do some research. This myth is absolutely untrue. My in-laws are very old-fashioned and my father-in-law in particular insists that leaving your hair wet in cold weather will make you sick.

The sugar high. There is no scientific evidence that supports that if you give a kid a bunch of sugar that they will get hyped up. This is a myth that has been widely accepted because of some outdated erroneous studies that subsequent studies disproving any correlation have been unable to dislodge from the collective psyche. This idea gets exacerbated by that fact that chocolate, which also contains caffeine, when given to youngsters sometimes DOES evoke hyperness. The effect of the caffeine gets incorrectly associated with sugar intake.

Here's one that always mystified me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

-Ed

* Filling an ice cube tray with warm water will make it freeze faster.
* A four-leaf clover will bring you good luck.
* If you swallow gum it will stick to your ribs.
* If you have a craving while you are pregnant, and eat the food you crave, your baby will look like that food (this one was from the old folks on the Italian side of my family)

hah! I like the warm water one. There's actually a good reason for that misunderstanding. Technically, that is correct, but only on a semantic level. If you put two cups of water in the same freezer at the same time, one being at room temperature and one being 20 degrees warmer, the warmer water will start dropping in temperature at a faster rate, because the of the temperature differential. The closer the water gets to the temperature of the surroundings, the slower the temperature changes. So, at first, the warmer water is moving toward a state of freezing at a faster clip, but, here's where people misundestand, it won't reach freezing point sooner than the water that was at room temperature. In fact, the water that was at room temperature will probably reach freezing point sooner because it is closer to that state already. But technically, the warmer water is "freezing faster" because the temperature is changing more rapidly. Purely a semantic consideration.

I love this thread.

If someone hits you on the back while you’re making a funny face, your face will stay like that forever.

If you swallow seeds of any kind, a tree will grow in your stomach.

The "green stuff" under an escalator will suck you in if you let your foot touch it.

Not really an old wives tale, but my mom and grandmother were constantly telling me that anything I wanted to do that they didn’t want me to do was “illegal”.  My mom would make up laws, go into detail about how she or I would be arrested and/or have to pay large sums of money for whatever it was that I wanted to do.  These illegal activities were things like touching the telephone, walking around the corner, sitting on someone else’s porch, and my mom insisted curfew was 8pm, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t though.  She even put an age limit on it too, first it was illegal for me to be out after 8pm when I was under 12, and then as soon as I was 12 she said it was on the news last week that they changed it to 14, and when I was 14 it changed to 17.  I’m still not even sure if half of the things I think are illegal really are.

I was terrified of a lot of things when I was a kid.. I actually still kind of am.

Don't make funny faces too much or your face will stay that way.

If a woman has a serious food craving during pregnancy, the baby will be born with a birthmark in that shape.

My grandma told us that whistling in the house would invite the devil inside.

I'm pretty sure she made that up just to get us to stop whistling in the house. It didn't work as well as she thought, since we just stopped when she was in earshot.

.Hold your button on your shirt and spit when passing a graveyard.(keep away spooks).
.Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis.
.Drinking booze in cold weather warms you up.(It actually thins the blood-making you colder-of course if yer real snockered you may not know how freezing you are... :lookingup:)
.Drinking coffee will sober you up.
.Waking up a sleep walker will give them a heart attack and they'll die. I usta wake my sister up when she sleep walked-it was like she was in a trance or something.
.If you say Candyman 5 times while looking in a mirror-a scary guy covered in bees will kill you. (Oh,wait...thats a movie... :tongueout:)

Cats steal the breath of babies.

When my brother and his crazy-ass wife came to visit with their new baby for the first time I learned they both feverishly believed this. They frantically insisted I put my cat outside even though we were having record low temps - below 0.  They finally relented and 'allowed' me to keep the cat in my bedroom.

hi
I am sorry for bringing this subject down to gutter level, but i was hoping Menard would have mentioned this but alas i shall have to do so.
You will go blind if you Mastubate too often:
this one refers to women
Smart head,bad in bed;

Macabre

Actually, it dilates the blood vessels in your skin, bringing more warmth out where you can feel it. The downside is you lose heat a lot faster. Your body naturally constricts those vessels in the cold, to maintain your core temperature. Drinking alcohol to stay warm circumvents one of the body's natural protections against freezing to death, so you feel warmer as you get colder overall. Still, in situations where there's less danger of hypothermia than there is of frostbite or discomfort, I'd take a couple of snorts if I had the option.

When I was a kid, we lived beside an elementary school that had an iron fire escape attached to it.  All the kids in the neighborhood used to say if you stepped on a certain spot on the top level, the fire escape would expand and go way up into the sky.  I remember me and some of the neighborhood kids going almost to the top, but being afraid to step on the top platform because we thought we'd be raised up into the clouds never to be heard from again.

Peacock feathers are bad luck inside a house.
Elephant figurines must have the end of the trunk turning UPwards or they are bad luck.
Horseshoes hung up for luck must have the open side (heels) pointing up or all the luck will fall out.
A female animal is 'ruined' forever for breeding if she has been bred to an inferior male.
A horse is worth $100 (now more like a thou!) for every time he rolls over completely, in a row.
Horses that are lying down are so sick they are dying (this is a movie staple!)
Changing a horse's name changes its luck.
Another horsey one:
"One white foot, buy him
Two white feet, try him
Three white feet, eye him
Four white feet, deny him
Four white feet and a white nose, knock him on the head and feed him to the crows"
(And a whole bunch more about colours, markings, hair whorls and "thumbprints")

The size of a man's hands or feet will tell you how he's hung. 
Chewing gum takes seven years to pass through the human digestive system.
You have to wait an hour after eating before you go swimming or you'll get cramps.
You should store batteries in the refrigerator to make them last longer.
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE was the worst movie ever made.

That's not true?  I've been anxiously waiting  a whole hour to go swimming after eating and that's not true?!  Darn it MOM!!!!!

No, but going in five minutes after a big meal can give you cramps so bad you throw up.

If you spill salt, toss it over your shoulder- umm, wouldn't you just still be wasting salt?
never look up and have yer mouth open. take a wild guess why? :wink:

Actually that first one is correct, plus a few othe rmarkers which I won't mention here  :wink:  I've applied it to every man I've dated and I've never been wrong yet  :thumbup:

[Trevor looks at small hands and size 8 shoes] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! :bluesad: :wink:

I think the thing about not swimming immediately after eating is somewhat correct.  After you eat, a lot of blood flows to the areas around your stomach, which is needed to carry out the digestion process.  When you swim, that blood needs to flow to the muscles, to carry away lactic acid which is a by-product of muscle exertion (it's what gives you the "burn" during exercise).  If not carried away, it can result in cramping.  If your body is trying to devote resources to digestion and you put a heavy physical strain on it from swimming at the same time, well...best to wait a while just to be on the safe side   :teddyr:

Since others are refuting some of the Old Wives' Tales already listed:


If you eat quickly, you tend to take in a larger quantity before you feel full: so if eating more makes you fat, then it follows that eating fast can contribute.


Genetics says that a male child can be expected to share 25% of his genes with an uncle: it can be an even higher percentage. It is very comon for children to resemble their parent's siblings Siblings that have the same parents share many of the same genes, making it possible for kids to resemble their aunts and uncles.

Interesting. I look lmore like my uncle that I do my parents, and my nephew looks more like me than he does my brother.

Makes sense. Your parents come from the same stock as their siblings, with a different shuffling of the genes. It does seem logical that when those genes are reshuffled, some of the other traits might take more prominence.

Makes me think of my wife's family. There is kind of a distinctive nose shape (kind of hooked and pointed at the same time) on her mom's side of the family. Her mom doesn't have it, but her sister and brother do. And while there is a clear resemblance between my sister-in-law and her mother, she does resemble her uncle, who has the same nose and similar colouring.

My charming Irish in-laws, bless 'em, believe without a doubt that you can determine the gender of an expected baby by dangling a needle on a string over the expectant mother's belly.

My mom has always been one to cite old wives' tales, but never believed any that weren't at least based on some kind of misunderstood science. She clearly believed that sitting too close to the TV would "ruin your eyes" and eating dry pasta or uncooked rice would cause a bowel blockage when it expanded inside you. But she would only jokingly tell somebody that spilling salt meant they were going to have a fight, or some such thing. Coming from a farming background and growing up in the 1930s and 40s, it doesn't surprise me that she would have some knowledge and fondness for folklore. She's told me her father used to read tea leaves for people. It was just for fun, sort of a party trick. He'd look into the cup and make up some BS, and the other person would make it fit. Same way the pros do it, I suppose. I think they were too much of an old-fashioned Presbyterian family to have any serious belief in the supernatural, beyond their own religion. I get the impression my grandfather also had something of an interest in science, at least as it pertained to agriculture. I never met the man, but I do think I inherited a lot from him.

There's a similar one for changing the name of a boat.  On the 'Net, there are elaborate ceremonies circulating for the "only true way" to combat this if you change a boat's name; many involve virgins ... sacrifice a virgin or in place of going THAT extreme, get a virgin to urinate on the boat to "cleanse" it of the old name.

I am so sick of this stupid crap in the 'boating world.'  Geez.  Throughout history (many boaters claim to be "well read"), boats/ships were renamed at will.  Especially warships upon capture; the new Navy would rename the ship that day, or soon thereafter, so one could argue that the OLD name was the unlucky one.

Some ships changed hands many times and underwent as many name changes.  The name of the vessel did not cause defeat - the superior power or skill of the opponent did.

Historically, though, sailors (even deeply religious ones) were a superstitious lot.  Some others:

(1) Whistling or scratching the back stay will make the wind blow

(2) Never leave port on a Friday

(3) Early bad luck in a voyage (accidents, etc) is an omen that the voyage itself is 'doomed.'  The Titanic suffered from some early 'near misses' that many continue to claim foretold the disaster to come.  ALL of this is hindsight, though...there are many cases where early mishaps had no effect later in a vessel's 'career.'

(4) A single hapless crewman (clumsy, ugly, not well liked, etc) can bring back luck to an entire voyage; he was termed a "Jonah" after the Bible story.

(5) For many years, it was commonly held in the British Navy that British sea captains could win engagements by moral force alone - that since they were British, they had an advantage.  The War of 1812 did a lot to overturn this notion.

(6) Never step on or off a vessel by leading with the left foot; nailing a right boot the mast could bring good luck.

(7) Women on board were considered bad luck; this may have arisen due to the 'distraction' or disaffection it caused in the crew. Exceptions were made for warrant officer's wives.  Another exception was if the woman was naked; she was then thought to calm the sea.  (yea, right...tell me some of this was not well thought out).

(8) It is unlucky to kill an Albatross.  Some mistake this one to be that is considered unlucky to SEE an albatross, but that is actually lucky.

(9) Placing a coin under the mast will bring good luck.

(10) Cutting your hair at sea can bring bad luck.  Sailors took enormous pride in the length of their plaits.  The "crew cut" for sailors is a recent phenomenon.

KB, there's something that comes to mind here called "sample size."   :wink:  Also, I've heard this myth applied to hands, feet and noses---but I have small hands, average sized feet and a big nose---so what would you conclude?   :tongueout:

Sounds plausible--but it's just theoretical, the empirical evidence doesn't back it up.  This is almost always listed as a myth. 

From the New York Times health column (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/health/28real.html):  "..the warning is yet another old wives' tale that should be laid to rest. The theory is that the process of digestion increases blood flow to the stomach - away from the muscles needed for swimming - and leads to cramps, which increase the risk of drowning.

Dr. Roshini Rajapaksa, a gastroenterologist at the New York University School of Medicine, said that while swimming strenuously on a full stomach could conceivably lead to cramps, for most recreational swimmers the chances are small. And at least one study that looked at drownings in the United States found that fewer than 1 percent occurred after the victim ate a meal, she added."

But maybe you and the old wives are right, it doesn't really hurt anything so why not be on the safe side?
 

Well...it will tell you if its boy/girl or ferromagnetic mutant for sure.
0Ed

Going out a different entrance than you came in can be bad luck. Also returning home prematurely from a plannet trip to get something you've forgotten.

A black cat passing in front of you is an ill omen.

RC, I would have to see you in real life to determine for sure.  What you consider small hands, might not be so depending on the other criteria that I use  :wink:

- Watching horror movies and playing violent video games will turn you into a psychopathic maniac.

 :bouncegiggle:

...in that case, I've been "under the influence" for the last 27yrs and am about to crack!  :twirl:

Yeah, you and about 20 million other players who were wrongly labelled by the liberal media every day since the video game system was born.

What a myth, huh?  :bouncegiggle:

What's funny is when the whole "videogame violence" thing first popped up around the late 90's or so. My parents saw me playing Marvel vs Capcom and freaked out. They said (since it's a fighting game) all it is is violence and it's bad for me, then they took the game away. I tried to plead my case (it's rated E for Everyone, it's comic book characters like Spiderman fighting other characters, there's no blood), but they insisted that since there's no plot, it just fuels violence and "studies prove" that I'll become a freak.

Ironically, they took away Marvel vs Capcom, but had absolutely no problem with my horror movie collection. Lol. I couldn't play a superhero videogame, but I was allowed to watch nude teens get hacked up by Jason...that was perfectly ok in their book because I wasn't "creating the violence like videogames let you do".

 :bouncegiggle:

The phrase I grew up hearing was "That book/movie/tv show/comic book/magazine/friend will WARP YOUR MIND!"

I am proud to say my mind was and remains delightfully warped.  :twirl:

I know nothing about old wives' tales. I'm a leg man myself.

step on a crack, breaks your mama's back- you won't believe how false that is down here!

You know, they have the technology to release hoverboards, but the government won't let them on the market because they are too dangerous.

Also, there are cars that can run on water, but the oil conglomerates have been suppressing them for years.

Everyone whi smokes weed will eventually get addicted to worse drugs (finishing off their life with heroin).

I think sex ones are some of the funniest, stupidest, and most dangerous all rolled into one.

One that just won't go away no matter how well-educated people get (apparently): a woman can't get pregnant her first time.  Why?  Magic, apparently.

Hmmm...  I've known of body builders who resist sex/masturbation as they believe the loss of semen is a huge loss of protein. 

I heard of a belief, supposedly popular in some third world countries, that douching with Coca Cola after sex would prevent pregnancy.

Well, that could be one aspect of 'roid rage.
-Ed

What a refreshing idea. 

And the ones who go the other way, because they think it stimulates testosterone production.

My friend's stepdad told her that before "doin' it" with a guy, she should put earwax on his ding-dong, and if it burned or fizzled, then she shouldn't "do it" with him.

I don't know if that's true, but it sounds like a great way to scare guys away!

So, what, was that supposed to test if he was Satan or something? Mind you, if a guy's body temperature is high enough to burn wax, sleeping with him might not be a great idea (unless you like internal 2nd degree burns.)

We assumed it meant that he was dirty.. sort of like how peroxide fizzes on stuff.  I'm sure he was just really hoping she'd try it!

If the girl wasn't too bright, maybe it was just the father's way of keeping boys from taking advantage of her...

I heard of a guy who wanted to try that trick, but the ear was too small.

That actually started in the Military. The Army used to tell guys to do that only up in a girls (usually referring to a prostitute) naughty parts. If she squirmed around like it burned, she had open sores up in there. Apparently it, probably from the salt it it, would burn. They used to say to use lemon juice or salt for the same effect. Not exactly a scientific approach.

Or. .. maybe more people are 'misbehaving' than we thought :)

No, they didn't get those genes from their aunts or uncles, but both the child and its aunt/uncle share the same gene with a grandmother or older relative.

Ain't nobody puttin' nuthin' on mah ding dong.  :buggedout: :buggedout: :buggedout:

Too bad nobody let Rosemary in on this,eh?

Somebody should have started spreading around that a thorough coating of warm saliva was required.