Article created by: Jurgita Dominauskaitė
Word spreads like wildfire and if it’s not true, then it goes around even faster. That’s one of the ways how gossip, fake news and old wives' tales are born.
To reverse the process is no easy feat, even if we have unlimited resources to fact-check every bit of information we get. So folks on Reddit took it upon themselves to make others aware that you don’t actually use only 10% of your brain and a watermelon won’t grow in your belly if you swallow a seed.
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.
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)
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.
Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis.
That we only use 10% of our brain
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.
That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing
You can't get pregnant if you are breastfeeding.
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.
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?
Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years
When you shave your hair it grows back thicker.
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 mil thinks that if I tickle my babies feet he will have a speech delay
The cold makes you get sick, not germs
No swimming for 30 minutes after eating
"If you swallow a watermelon seed, a watermelon will grow in your stomach."
Urine is sterile .
Butter on burns
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.
If you cut your hair, it grows faster. No.
Vick's Vaporub cures all flu and cold like illnesses - just need to rub it all over.
That people in Spain speak with a lisp because they didn’t want to embarrass a lisp-having king back in the day.
