The fingers on my two hands wouldn’t be enough to count how many times I’ve heard that Einstein was bad at school math. Or that bulls go into full-on rage mode when they see red.
Turns out, many of those are just urban myths disguised as common knowledge. So what other nonsense do we, my fellow human beings, all blatantly believe in? This thread on r/AskReddit may give us some answers as people share some of the most annoying myths we all are guilty of trusting in.
Have any annoying myth on your mind to add to this list? Hit us in the comment below!
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That certain animal 'parts' have healing/magical properties. Like tiger whiskers protect the wearer or rhino horn cures impotence and hangovers.
That vaccines cause autism, are made by the government to control you etc etc.
That gold fish can life in small fish bowls. Worst possible thing to do to them. They die so quickly because they are messy fish and ultimate swimming in toxic water. The need twice the water a regular fish needs to dilute the ammonia their food and waste create. Goldfish can grow up to 12-14 inches and live 10-15 years in a proper habitat! Just because your parents’ parent did this or you see them at the fair doesn’t mean it’s right. Same goes for most animals kept in small cages/tanks. If you aren’t going to do it right, then you should not own that pet. Do your research. End rant ha
Not sure if this fits here exactly, but the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit being a frivolous case filed by a money hungry customer. That poor lady was a real victim who suffered legitimate injuries who only wanted her medical costs covered.
She suffered third degree burns to her upper thighs and lower lap! McD's even acknowledged that the coffee was dangerously hot.
She was hospitalized for 8 days and underwent 2 years of treatment! Trivialize that McPigs!
Load More Replies...Their coffee was literally scalding hot, 180 to190 F or 82 to 88C. The lady was sat in a parked car and held the coffee between her knees, it spilled when she took off the lid (so not from driving over bumps or something). She had 3rd degree burns over 6% of her body and lesser burns on other parts. You can pretty much say all her ladybits fused together from the burns. She needed skin grafts and extensive hospital stays and care. She suffered permanent disfigurement. She only requested 20.000 from McD to cover her medical bills and a small amount of money for her daughter who had to take time off work to take care of her. They refused and offered less than 1000 dollars to settle the matter. The lady then went to an attorney, McD refused every offer to settle, so eventually they ended up in court. Also she didn't exactly get all the millions most people think she got. The jury awarded something close to 3 million, but the judge reduced that to a bit over half a million
She originally only wanted McD's to help her with her medicine bill which was about $3000. They refused, a lawyer got involved...the rest is history.
Yup, it's the American system that's effed up. But her case was valid.
Load More Replies...It was already known to McDonald's that their coffee was dangerously hot because this was not the first incident.
And the prior victims were mostly small children. You know, the ones who dart under foot, and don't realize why they shouldn't. But McDonald's figured it was cheaper to pay occasional damages versus turning down the temperature of the water for the coffee. The hotter the water the fewer the coffee beans needed. It was a cost saving measure, and if some people got hurt,oh well.
Load More Replies...There was a documentary about her called hot coffee. She was severely burned but late night tv turned it into a joke
I was also going to mention this. Highly recommended. It talks about the overall push for tort reform in the 1980’s. The case about the guy who sued the phone company after getting hit by a drunk driver in a phone booth was the most fascinating one to me. Reagan talked s**t about it, and it is not at all what people think.
Load More Replies...The coffee machine was set for 180 F - 190 F, as per the official manual. The Shriner's Burn Institute says coffee should not be drunk above 130 F. 50 to 60 degrees to hot was criminal.
Imagine what that would have done to her mouth of she drank it. The water temperatures fast food places have it set to is hazardous for customers and employees, and employees get burned all the time. Ask yourselves if you make your coffee with searing, boiling water and drink it immediately without allowing it to cool.
The saddest part is that there's a requirement (legitimate NEED) to have a lawsuit *just* to get medical costs covered. Legit, medical needs. Seriously.
Yes!!! I remember reading all about this and how the fast food industry spent so much just to smear her name but didn't help her with simple medical bills.
HBO made a documentary about this case and similar cases called hot coffee :)
The media made it sound like she was money hungry crying over spilt coffee. They conveniently left out the 3rd degree burns she suffered and the surgeries needed to repair the damage. Late night hosts made jokes about it. Because of the misinformation and downright wrong information pushed about this and similar cases, Tort Reform and "Frivolous Lawsuits" are big buzzwords. However, those changes will only protect the corporations, not the consumers. No one cares about the consumer, so Tort is the way to make corporations accountable for their dangerous products.
Yes!! The law suit would NEVER have happened if McDonald's weren't such jerks in the first place. All she wanted was the few thousands to pay her medical bills. I forget how much she asked for, but they offered $800. She went to court.
WHY. DOES. IT. HAVE. TO. BE. SO. FUCCKING. SCORCHING. MUTILATING. BLISTERING. HOT?!?!
Because they're a$$holes that don't give a crap about anyone. I used to tell them to put ice in my coffee if I got it to go. If I had it there, I told them to leave room for the ice. Now, I just never get their coffee unless I'm really desperate. I'll get a Monster or something like that before I get a cup of McScaldMyMouth.
Load More Replies...I’ve had their coffee and it is HOT. There is no reason for any beverage to be that hot. I think they changed the temps after this happened.
I believe that it was either because that way it would stay hot for drive through customers or, and this is way worse but i don't know which was their actual reason, they were giving refills on coffee and when it was that hot people took longer to drink it and so asked for less refills. Either way they had had several people get hurt before but they figured it was more cost effective for them to pay out damages occasionally than make coffee that wasn't superheated. That justification was also why the jury gave such high punitive damages - they wanted to make sure companies learnt it is more cost effective to not hurt your customers.
Load More Replies...The franchise owner was warned and cited by health officials that their coffee was 1 degree below boiling. That lady was absolutely mutilated.
Just watched a video on this, the doctors actually thought she would die because her burns were so serious. There had been 700 cases before her. It's just shocking.
the coffee was so hot she required skin grafts that's TOO HOT FOR COFFEE
The injured woman sought $20,000 initially, but she was awarded $3 million (back in the 1980s) in "punitive damages," so the fact that she only wanted her medical costs covered precisely validates the cause this case is usually cited with: that lawsuit verdicts were too high.
She was disfigured from the burns. Like skin melted off. The only reason they kept the coffee so hot is not to waste a pot that has been sitting there forever.
I saw a post on Facebook saying most "frivolous" lawsuits are results of business trying to make the people suing look bad. They're drastically simplified. It made me think.
Sadly, history is written by the winners, and in cyrrent day, big companies are the winners...
Smh. My parents still think this story was fake and that it was just someone tryna rob a business of money. When I tried to defend her they just shot me down (as they tend to do). Angers me so much
I remember when McDonald's used to serve coffee that hot. You had to let it sit 15-20 minutes or it would burn your mouth really badly.
Perhaps in Australia it'd be considered frivolous because we have most medical costs covered by Medicare.
Vengan a Europa, pidan un café y cuando se lo sirvan recién salido de la máquina, como debe ser, pongan una denuncia. Las risas atravesarán el Atlántico.
Temperatura que alcanza el agua cuando hierve: 100ºC. Cuando se sirve un café la temperatura sufre un descenso progresivo al contacto con el vaso, azucar, cucharilla, traslado hasta la mensa.... etc. Es imposible quemadura de tercer grado (quemadura en epidermis, dermis e hipodermis) salvo que la persona afectada permanezca deliberadamente expuesta al calor para provocarse mas daño.
Coffee is not supposed to be that "f*****g hot" and if you learned how to read, that would be obvious.
Load More Replies...The jury initially awarded her close to 3 million, but she never got that much. She got about 600k and she used that for medical bills and the care she needed after the incident. She did not become rich after a minor incident like people seem to think. She almost died, her ladybits were fused together, she suffered the rest of her life because of it
Load More Replies...Go back & read the comments. The coffee wasn't just hot. I was once given coffee as hot as she was, I couldn't drink it. I couldn't even hold the cup. I asked for something less hot and was told they didn't have it, 'everyone' wanted it extra hot. I reckon if that was true, 'everyone' was an idiot.
Load More Replies...You are so rude. By the way, she wasn't driving the vehicle. She was in the passenger seat.
Load More Replies...Not the point of this post. Start your own. That would be interesting too! Stating that here is like saying, Well men get raped too when we're talking about violence against women and children. See? Valid point. Deserves its own discussion. But here it's derailing the topic. <3
Load More Replies...Of course they are. But should two years of medical procedures and tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills (Thanks, US medical system!) be the punishment for a moment of inattention? Does the corporation not bear any responsibility for distributing a dangerous product? Especially when they had already received numerous complaints about that very problems, burns from it being too hot? (from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000) The legal system frequently relies on the Reasonable Person doctrine. Would a reasonable person expect to receive third degree burns over six percent of her skin for opening a cup of coffee? Would a reasonable person expect a company who received complaints that their coffee was too hot, turn the heat down to a reasonable temperature?
Load More Replies...The real story is that McDonalds served the coffee at a temperature that was dangerously hot. She only wanted her medical bills covered, but McDonalds were offering her an insulting amount (even though they admitted to knowing about the risk), so she went to trial (still only for her medical bills) and the Jury awarded her $3 million because they felt McDonalds wasn't taking the risk seriously (and there were another 700 cases of similar injury from the coffee temperature at the time too which McDonalds was also dismissing).
Load More Replies...Poor people are poor because they don't know how to manage their money
That the customer is always right.
"...In matters of TASTE." Yes ma'am that orange plaid looks wonderful on you! Let's wrap it up.
You can "detox" your body from toxins and parasites by drinking certain teas or taking some weird medication.
Repeated diarrhea and frequent urination doesn't indicate toxins leaving your body, your liver and kidneys do the job. If your liver is not functioning or you have a kidney disorder, obviously you need help but it won't be teas that someone on Instagram is boasting about.
Many people still believe hymens are like plastic food seals that cover up the hole and get popped when you have sex for the first time, and if a girl doesn't bleed she's not a virgin.
The whole idea of “virginity” is made up BS to manipulate and control people. Particularly women.
Fish only have a 5 second memory. My fish are fed automatically on a timer and they know dinner time better than my goddamn cat.
We used to have a fish called Grimnos who chose what he was fed with. Crumb, Flake or pellets. We would line them up in front of his tank and he would swim to the one he wanted and stare at it until we picked it up, and he would swim to the top and wait. We tried giving him one he didn't choose once, and he refused to eat!
That violence in the world is getting worse and worse. Actually, in relation to the world's population we live in the most non-violent era in history. The problem is that, while 500 years ago you might have not even heard all the news from within your city, we can now hear all the horrible news from all over the world (and we're also more people). But still, human interaction and conflict in general is much less violent than it used to be.
This. The news love to spread negative news because they think to made more audience that way. But looking around in less main stream media is obvious that we, as humans, are going in the right way. Still a lot of work to do but we should be glad to be born in these times.
That historically, corsets were extremely dangerous. That is false. “Tightlacing”, which is basically just what’s seen in the movies, where they make the corset as tight as they can, was not very common, and only used in the extremely upper class. Most people wore corsets completely safely, lacing down very little, if at all. Women climbed mountains, biked, did sports, and everything, in corsets.
Sometimes I think a comfortable corset would feel much nicer than a contemporary bra!
That if you touch a baby bird, its mother will abandon it because of the smell. Birds actually have a very bad sense of smell.
Ah, this ones good for children though. It stops them reaching out trying to 'play' with the bird, ultimately damaging them. Helps children show respect of animals. For adults though....
That woman can hold their period like we can hold our pee. I am still pissed at that teacher...
A lot of commonly believed stuff about the female reproductive system/anatomy, like vaginas getting loose if a woman has a lot of sex, or that having a lot of sex somehow drastically changes the look of a woman's labia.
People with OCD just repeatedly wash their hands and like things clean and organized. This is how it presents in some people. There is so much more to this mental illness that people aren’t aware of that lead to people not getting diagnosed or help.
I don't have full blown OCD but do have some compulsive behaviors. For example if I see my nails and enough has grown for me to bite (I'm a yucky nail biter) it will "scream" at me until I bite it off. Then I can continue my day as per normal. For my aunt, skew or crooked things "scream" at her until she fixes them, so she doesn't go to restaurants with purposely crooked art anymore. Human brains are weird.
You swallow 8 spiders a year in your sleep. The thing was created to see how easily fake news spread.
Astrology: that your horoscope tells something about your personality
The five second rule.
We all know it's not 5 seconds till it's too dirty to eat, it's really just 5 seconds before other people judge you for eating off the floor.
You have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person's report.
It's the opposite. If someone been missing over 48h then most of clues or evidences already dried out
I have a black cat with white spots on her belly and people have made comments about never having a black cat because they are bad luck or evil. Dude, it’s a cat. Also, hear often comments regarding not breaking mirrors or sweeping over someone’s feet. Its 2021 we really still believe this?!
Black cats are rarely adopted from shelters because of this stupid superstition.
That dairy cows just "make" milk.
Cows aren't any different than the rest of the mammals. They make milk when they have a baby. Humans just take the baby away after it's born.
This is fairly obvious, but their young still get looked after, and *spoiler alert* the cows end up as burgers and leather after they've finished their usefulness as dairy cows.
That carrots improve eyesight. It was actually British propaganda from World war II, I think to explain how they kept on shooting down German planes at night, in order to conceal their invention of a new type of radar I believe. More funny than annoying, I just want to say it.
The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space. First of all, it's not, and second, other ones are.
Organic means no pesticides used. As I understand it, it means that no synthetic pesticides were used.
Not a myth per se, but the number of people who grossly misunderstand how evolution and natural selection works is crazy high.
Ostriches bury their head in the sand when confronted. The fact that Ostrich legs and claws are powerful enough to kill any predator makes a mockery of the myth. In actual fact, they don't make nests but bury their eggs in warm soft soil. They then frequently turn the eggs over in the ground to stop them overheating giving the appearance that they are sticking their heads in the ground from a distance.
MSG - a lot of people still believe it's basically poison. It's no more harmful than regular salt.
That margarine is "one molecule away" from being plastic.
Firstly, "one molecule away" makes no sense. It is a meaningless phrase.
Secondly, being "one atom away" is also meaningless, because a change in atomical structure means the substances are different.
A molecule of H2O has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. H2O is water.
H2O2 has two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms. H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide.
But we don't caution against drinking water by saying that it's "one atom away" from being hydrogen peroxide, because that one atom completely changes the makeup of that substance. Water isn't "almost" peroxide or vice versa.
This is an oversimplification, obviously, but suffice it to say that you shouldn't take advice from someone who claims that margarine is "one molecule away" from being plastic. It's a complete misnomer.
I don't even like or eat margarine but this drives me up the freaking wall.
Anyone who ever drink dihydrogen monoxide will be dead sooner or later
Schizophrenia is the same thing as Multiple Personality Disorder
Scholars in the middle ages didn't believe the Earth was flat. The ancient Greeks knew that [stuff] was false. The myth of the flat earth was a post-Romanticism fancy in pop culture, not a serious scholarly movement.
That line from Men In Black has pissed me off ever since I learned the truth.
That cutting your hair off makes it grow in thicker.
It just takes off the thin or split ends so the hair looks fuller and thicker.
We only use 10% of our brains. If you don't know what 100% is, then how do you determine what 10% is.
After reading most of these beliefs people have I' positive they are using only 10% of thir brain power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cracking your knuckles makes them bigger/gives you arthritis.
This is an ongoing battle between myself and my older coworkers.
That historical armor was basically useless, only increasing the chance of maybe deflecting a blow if you were lucky. You still see it in movies, shows and games where a knife or sword or arrow will go through armor like it's cardboard.
In reality armor was very useful. Very good armor, like a knight's suit of plate, made the wearer virtually invincible. The best plate could stop even early firearms. A knight in full plate and wielding a shield was pretty much the tank of the medieval battlefield. Doubly so if on horseback. Specialized weapons and a concerted effort was needed to defeat one, although typically no one would try to kill a knight since you can't ransom a corpse.
But even simple gambesons, which were made from layers of fabric, could resist a sword cut. High quality gambesons could resist all but the strongest cuts from specialized cutting swords.
Also: that swords were super heavy. A typical one-handed arming sword from the middle ages weighed around 3lbs, 4 max. A two-handed long sword could get up to 5lbs. Rapiers weighed around the same as other swords, which is contrary to popular belief.
Yes, swinging around a 3-4lb object would tire someone out, but the people doing so were generally more fit than the people reading this thread.
Piggybacking on this, the myth that the sword was the most important weapon on the medieval battlefield. Nope, your primary weapon was a sort of polearm - spear, lance if on horseback, halberd, pike, bardiche, naginata, you name it. The sword was actually the sidearm, the weapon you used after your spear broke or became ineffective (tight in melee, for example) or the one you took with you everywhere, even in context where you were unarmored. Sure, there are examples of fully armored knights fighting with two-handed swords, but that's sort of an edge case, because that usually requires a full plate harness and some specific circumstances to pull off and it's debatable wherever it doesn't straddle the border between sword and pole arm anyway, especially later examples, like the Zweihänder of the German Landsknechte, which was popular in the 16th century - those guys even had smaller swords (usually some type of messer) as sidearms to their swords...
Bulls get angry when they see the color red. It's not true..
Bulls are actually red-green colorblind. What actually triggers the bull's anger is the movement in front of them.
Did you see mythbusters test the "bull in a china shop"? Calm, sensible, and didn't break a thing
If you lift your hands above your head while pregnant you will strangle the baby. I am sure it was started by smart women who didn’t want to do all the housework while pregnant and tired. I still hear it every now and again.
The highest tax rate means your entire income is taxed at that rate
I HATE this one! It's used deliberately to reinforce the idea that the rich shouldnt be taxed somehow - yet it's usually perpetuated by people who are middle class at most (since a lot of the ultra rich either fully understand the tax system, or can employ people who do on their behalf). It's a mindset that leads to "you cant have a 75% tax rate because *when I'm earning more* you'll be taking more off me". Like the whole thing where people who were several tens of thousands of dollars off being affected were protesting because of some hyperthetical future pay rise they were going to someday maybe get.
That Napoleon was short. He was average height
He was about 5'7" in English measurement, 5'2" by French. Also he was affectionately dubbed The Little Colonel by his troops, likely because his bodyguards and some officers were taller. Another source says that when he was victorious in Italy, he was a young, inexperienced and relatively unknown officer so it was a derogatory moniker. Either way, the nickname stuck.
that myth about how nasa invented ballpoint pens for space while the USSR just used pencils... basically completely untrue
Einstein was bad at school math.
That one is interesting. Einstein went to school in Switzerland, where grades are opposite of other countries (in Germany i.e. 1 ist best, 6 is worst / Swiss 5 is best, 1 is worst). Einstein had a 4-5 in math, meaning the best to second best grade in swiss. It's just a Transmission error.
That you can spot-reduce fat. Far too many quacks on the internet talking about “toning” and “melting belly fat” with a hundred sit-ups a day.
sit-ups are bad for your back. No good physiotherapist would tell people to do sit-ups.
Black belts have to register their fists as weapons... I can't believe I was dumb enough to fall for that.
History is filled with this stuff, but I'm gonna go with general misconceptions due to an inability to read history in context.
Often if you read a funny and strange story where you go 'haha those dumb superstitious people in the past' in reality there isn't superstition behind it, there's politics and power. For example, if you hear of someone being excommunicated and declared a witch / heretic for some odd reason the truth is the given reason is just a made up excuse, and the real reason is political intrigue.
That the government still has our best interests in mind.
That all GMOs have to be bad. There's a reason scientists still want to work on GMOs; it could greatly reduce the costs of food production and end world hunger.
Golden Rice, for example, is rice that is modified to maximize beta-carotene (basically vitamin A) to support areas whose diets cause vitamin A deficiencies. Anti-GMO groups oppose the effort (obviously) citing the normalization of GMOs and the corporate control of necessary dietary requirements in impoverished regions as their reasons against Golden Rice, but they fail to prove the rice itself is harmful (one study was believed to for some time, but it got exposed for breaking regulations that could have affected results). I think it's safe to say that children would rather save themselves from starvation than save themselves from glorifying GMOs or corporate dependency
Genetic modifications are a shortcut to what was previously done by careful breeding. The end result needs to be checked for any unexpected pitfalls, but the means don't have a direct effect in themselves.
The ONE thing everyone thinks they know about lemmings is bulls**t. They're not "suicidal," and will not succumb to herd-mentality and follow each other over a cliff in a big group if they're scared.
This "fact" originated in a Disney-produced nature documentary (documentary in a very loose sense). They literally made stuff up whole cloth because it looked cool on camera. They chased the lemmings over the edge of a small rise, and used camera tricks to make it look like they were falling to their deaths.
Then the lemmings became a pop-culture metaphor for harmful conformity, and cartoonists all over still reference it.
That tropical fish can be kept in a vase or bowl.
The North Star is the brightest star in the sky.
No it's not. It's Sirius.
If you go outside with your hair wet you will get sick.
You can make sure to have a girl baby by doing ...
You can tell the sex of the baby while the woman is pregnant by ...
...STFU I’m so sick of hearing these
But "You can tell the sex of the baby while the woman is pregnant by..." getting an ultrasound after14 (but doctors recommend 19-20) weeks.
that tryptophan in turkey makes you sleepy during thanksgiving. no. chicken has more tryptophan than turkey, and we only get sleepy on thanksgiving because we eat so much.
I never get tired on Thanksgiving! But then, I'm not American, live in the UK and don't celebrate it.
That natural is always better and chemicals are always bad. Also that you need to “detox your body” and let your skin “breathe”.
In my country people believe that if you're pregnant and cut your hair, the baby will be born blind lmao.
I don't even know why someone would ever think they could possibly be connected!
Oh god I work with kids and old people who work with the same kids:
That going outside in the rain/cold weather will make you sick. It will not.
its not really annoying per se but
The tongue map thing
the entire tongue tastes all flavors
Alpha dogs aren't a thing, researcher who "discovered" this made a mistake and tried to correct it but the damage was done.
There is no such thing as an alpha dog
At some point, a viral video allegedly proved that the “beg buttons” at crosswalks are just placebos.
Some of them are, but most of them really do add a cycle for pedestrians to get a walk signal. You should use them regardless.
That you get warts from frogs. Warts come from the human papilloma virus and come from contact with the virus through broken skin. It is a human specific virus and cannot be spread through different species.
This was likely made up by an exasperated mother to get her kid to stop bothering the frogs. Y'know, like the myth that your palms will turn hairy is you masturbate.
Apple products are the most “secure”
I did IT support for 9 years and got so tired of hearing "it can't have a virus, it's a Mac!"
That companies "can't" say that you were fired, or why you were fired, "by law."
I only found out recently (in the UK) that it's a myth that companies can't give a bad reference. They can, but they have to evidence it, so it can't be opinion or vindictive. As soon as I read that I thought 'of course' and was annoyed with myself for believing nonsense for years.
Mixing vinegar and baking soda in water makes an amazing foamy cleaning mixture! Actually they neutralize and form either a weak acid or weak base….either of which can actually be used as a cleaning agent and you don’t have to waste chemicals mixing the two….just use a small amount of either in water depending on what you’re trying to dissolve.
One situation where mixing them does yield superior results is when tryin to unclog drains, the foaming action delivers the solution to parts of the pipes it may not have been able to reach otherwise.
Gym instructors saying they have zero percent of body fat
People saying that blood is blue and it turns red when it hits oxygen. The only reason it appears blue (like in your hand) is merely a trick of lighting and reflection. And why/how would our blood have such a quick and large reaction to oxygen?
Not myth I guess but there is an astounding amount of people who have said to me "wait bugs aren't animals" or "bugs/fish are animals?"
I think they're confusing animal with mammal maybe but they usually include birds in there with animals so I dunno.
Maybe they just think animal means "fuzzy thing which which I am familiar".
So many people still think acid itself is deadly, but we find acid everywhere. Citric acid is in orange juice. Acetic acid is in vinegar. Carbonic acid is in any carbonated drink. Sulfuric, muriatic, and hydrofluoric acids are among the dangerous ones.
Don't forget that strong alkalis are just as dangerous, if not more dangerous! Calcium hydroxide (quicklime) is super dangerous
That if you shave your hair, it’ll grow back thicker and darker. The hair looks thicker because it has a blunt edge after shaving. The hair will taper back out when it grows again.
I think the new hair looks a little darker because it hasn't been exposed to elements yet. Doesn't sun in particular "drew out" colour of things?
That July and August were added to the calendar, throwing off the "Sept-Oct-Nov-Dec" numbering. This is not what happened. July and August were actually renamed versions of the original months "Quintilis" and "Sextilis". They did not throw off the order. The calendar used to begin in March. January and Feburary were the months that were added - they didn't use to keep official track of the months during Winter. King Numa Pompilius was the guy who added these months in around 713 BC. The shifting of the calendar to have January first is also attributed to him. It was NOT the fault of Julius Caesar.
So if someone asks me what month I was born in, I'll just be like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here in Taiwan people believe you can grow taller by exercising a lot, even if you're a full grown adult.
I’ve heard Pilates can help your core enough that you stand at your full height. I suppose older people who have started to hunch would appear taller after a few months of classes.
Touching baby animals in the wild will make their mother abandon them.
I heard that touching baby animals in the wild will get you arrested and put on some kind of register
Daddy long legs are venomous/ poisonous but too small to bite you. They’re not.
They're not what? Not venomous or not too small to bite? Perhaps both, or neither?
All of these mom's groups thinking some Chinese calendar is going to predict the gender of their baby. Or a pineapple pizza is going to induce labor.
You lose money by working overtime because of taxes.
This can be true. If your normal income is just short of being in a higher tax bracket, too much overtime can put you over the line.
White wine gets red wine out of the carpet
Well, it does. I doubted this until I tried, and it worked like a charm. Red wine stain simply disappeared, but the carpet was smelly AF. Perhaps it has something to do with the material the carpet's made of, but it sure as hell worked.
Driving with interior lights on at night will get you arrested.
Frosted Lucky Charms are, in fact, not magic.
It's illegal to kill praying mantis.
Not annoying. I just think it's kinda weird and funny that it's such a common myth.
We don't have this myth in the UK, but I don't see why it would be annoying that people believed it if it stopped them killing praying mantises?
That if your hand is bigger than your face you’re gay…
That's not a myth, it's a prank. Then you hold your hand up to your face, and I will hit it, causing you to hit yourself.
This was a good article - it was fun to read, and it not only reinforced a lot of things I'd already understood, it added to some things I hadn't heard of. The calendar item, for example. Well Done!
Another one: that is your ever have sex with HIV positive person you will instantly get the virus. Well no. The most risky situation which is a**l sex as being passive side has only 1/265 chance of infection. Other types of sexual activity even less, and are very dependent on the situation,
Very true, but it remains a pretty bad idea to knowingly have unprotected sex with an HIV positive person. Your chances do depend on the "viral load" of the infected person too. Higher load = higher chance of tranmission.
Load More Replies...I dunno if this is still going around but when I was young, it was commonly believed to be illegal to drive in bare feet (ostensibly because metal pedals in older cars grew hot while driving). As an officer pointed out during a defensive driving course back in the day, not only is is perfectly legal to drive barefooted, it's also really not a great idea to be reaching under the front seat hunting for your flip-flops when an armed officer is warily approaching your drivers side window.
You don't have to water your lawn every day. Lawns were a thing long before irrigation. My favorite discourse on the matter is from a youtuber who calls himself "The History Guy"
Who waters their lawn at all? What an incredible waste.
Load More Replies...... while some myths just sound like weird stuff no one believes in, ... people actually do believe that certain parts of rare animals cure or improve something they're not satisfied about regarding their own body. Often, it is either meant to prolong or enable an erection, or fertility - as if these were mankind's most pressing issues. But the snakeoil salesmen know their customers - something improving your eyesight in old age won't sell as good as something making your hard on a hard to deflate one, or making you horny or fertile, or all of the above. And these beliefs contribute to getting those species extinct - so, I say f**k all that superstition, f**k all the idiot's medicine, f**k all the so-called alternative cures. Evidence based medicine not only works better, it also will not make sharks or tigers extinct. Don't be stupid. Don't believe in magic.
It was kind of interesting. But so many should have been explained further. Just like getting 1/2 of an idea.
Some are obviously bullshit but I'd like to see evidence, or a source, for others. How for they know that Napoleon was average height instead of short? Not that I don't want to believe it, but to me those are 2 theories that both could be true.
Because he was captured and imprisoned by the British, twice. They'd have seen him close up. Someone had to have made his coffin after he died.
Load More Replies..."God" or "Gods" seems to have been missed from this list. Very annoying twaddle that lots of people still believe in.
Yes, why have a fun thead when you can arrogantly and condescendingly insult readers as well?!
Load More Replies...Vaccines do not cause autism at all, but there are things that may lead to an increased rate of autism that are good. For example, preterm infants may be more likely to be diagnosed with autism compared to full term infants. This means that a higher survival rate for preterm infants can lead to an increased rate of autism.
Not sure why you were downvoted. I hadn't heard about the link to preterm infants, but if someone thinks they have evidence to the contrary, I wish they'd post that, instead of just downvoting. SOMETHING is causing the increase in autism. I'm curious as to what (especially being autistic myself).
Load More Replies...Why do you have children so much that you think it's an insult?
Load More Replies...There is also the fact that a lot of people put false information on the internet and many people aren't properly taught at school how to differentiate between correct facts and false facts and how to tell if a resource is as trustworthy as it claims or appears.
Load More Replies...This was a good article - it was fun to read, and it not only reinforced a lot of things I'd already understood, it added to some things I hadn't heard of. The calendar item, for example. Well Done!
Another one: that is your ever have sex with HIV positive person you will instantly get the virus. Well no. The most risky situation which is a**l sex as being passive side has only 1/265 chance of infection. Other types of sexual activity even less, and are very dependent on the situation,
Very true, but it remains a pretty bad idea to knowingly have unprotected sex with an HIV positive person. Your chances do depend on the "viral load" of the infected person too. Higher load = higher chance of tranmission.
Load More Replies...I dunno if this is still going around but when I was young, it was commonly believed to be illegal to drive in bare feet (ostensibly because metal pedals in older cars grew hot while driving). As an officer pointed out during a defensive driving course back in the day, not only is is perfectly legal to drive barefooted, it's also really not a great idea to be reaching under the front seat hunting for your flip-flops when an armed officer is warily approaching your drivers side window.
You don't have to water your lawn every day. Lawns were a thing long before irrigation. My favorite discourse on the matter is from a youtuber who calls himself "The History Guy"
Who waters their lawn at all? What an incredible waste.
Load More Replies...... while some myths just sound like weird stuff no one believes in, ... people actually do believe that certain parts of rare animals cure or improve something they're not satisfied about regarding their own body. Often, it is either meant to prolong or enable an erection, or fertility - as if these were mankind's most pressing issues. But the snakeoil salesmen know their customers - something improving your eyesight in old age won't sell as good as something making your hard on a hard to deflate one, or making you horny or fertile, or all of the above. And these beliefs contribute to getting those species extinct - so, I say f**k all that superstition, f**k all the idiot's medicine, f**k all the so-called alternative cures. Evidence based medicine not only works better, it also will not make sharks or tigers extinct. Don't be stupid. Don't believe in magic.
It was kind of interesting. But so many should have been explained further. Just like getting 1/2 of an idea.
Some are obviously bullshit but I'd like to see evidence, or a source, for others. How for they know that Napoleon was average height instead of short? Not that I don't want to believe it, but to me those are 2 theories that both could be true.
Because he was captured and imprisoned by the British, twice. They'd have seen him close up. Someone had to have made his coffin after he died.
Load More Replies..."God" or "Gods" seems to have been missed from this list. Very annoying twaddle that lots of people still believe in.
Yes, why have a fun thead when you can arrogantly and condescendingly insult readers as well?!
Load More Replies...Vaccines do not cause autism at all, but there are things that may lead to an increased rate of autism that are good. For example, preterm infants may be more likely to be diagnosed with autism compared to full term infants. This means that a higher survival rate for preterm infants can lead to an increased rate of autism.
Not sure why you were downvoted. I hadn't heard about the link to preterm infants, but if someone thinks they have evidence to the contrary, I wish they'd post that, instead of just downvoting. SOMETHING is causing the increase in autism. I'm curious as to what (especially being autistic myself).
Load More Replies...Why do you have children so much that you think it's an insult?
Load More Replies...There is also the fact that a lot of people put false information on the internet and many people aren't properly taught at school how to differentiate between correct facts and false facts and how to tell if a resource is as trustworthy as it claims or appears.
Load More Replies...