Here are some more that I read about and truly are old wives tales.. no truth whatsoever to them. Chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years _________________ Cutting nails at night summons ghosts If you cross your eyes they may get stuck This is one old wives tale that I assure you is real.. The full moon causes strange behavior
My mother was forever telling me not to sit so close to the television or I'd go blind. She also would tell me getting lots of sun in the summer was "cold insurance" in an age when we didn't know about skin cancer...
Too cold to snow It is commonly accepted in Maine, as I recall it was in Michigan, that sometimes it is just too cold to snow. That might seem crazy, particularly given that we don't consider that our freezer is too cold to make ice, and everyone knows that it snows in the winter, and winters are cold. In this case, however, the old wives' tale is true. The atmosphere must have enough moisture to generate snow, and very cold air contains very little moisture. When temperatures fall below 10 Fahrenheit, it isn't likely to snow. Oh, there are atmospheric conditions in which there might be a snowstorm during very cold weather, but it's not likely. Temperatures have to be below freezing in order for ice crystals to attach to one another, drifting to earth as snowflakes, but when temperatures are very low, ice crystals have trouble attaching.
For us, it was an hour. This was one that most parents told but which most kids ignored whenever they were in a position to do so. Since no one I knew, growing up, had a pool, and the swimming holes deep enough to drown in were at least an hour away on bicycle, this wasn't one that came into play often unless we were camping. At Boy Scout camp, we generally went swimming right after lunch, so it didn't carry over there.
If you cross your eyes, they might stay that way. Crossing your eyes as a means of entertainment at the dinner table would sometimes result in the admonishment from your mother: "If you cross your eyes, they will (might) stay that way. While there is a medical condition, known as strabismus, in which a person's eyes are crossed, but that it isn't caused by pretending you have it. There's no switch beyond your eyeballs that might lock into place if you deliberately cross your eyes. Strabismus is believed to be an inherited problem, although a loss of vision from other reasons can lead to strabismus, as may some other eye diseases. There are also disorders in which the eye muscles are fine but the coordination is off. But these are disorders not resulting from a kid crossing his eyes to amuse his friends or distress his mother.
As kids we're often told some really odd things but we believe them because, hey, what would we know? And while most old wives tales are total rubbish, a few have some truth to them. Did your folks (or maybe your grandparents) ever tell you that eating your crusts would make your hair curly, so you shoved whole sandwiches in your gob for months on end only to learn it was all in vain? Going to bed with wet hair will make you catch a cold Great news for nite time shower takers everywhere, this is not true. Colds are infectious, contagious viruses and are totally unrelated to damp hair. This most probably originated when it was believed that being cold equaled a cold. Also, your mum probably just wanted to keep the pillows from getting damp. One old wife tales with some truth is.. eating carrots can help you to see in the dark. According to Science Focus, carrots contain vitamin A, or retinol, and this is required for your body to synthesise rhodopsin, which is the pigment in your eyes that operates in low-lite conditions. If you have a vitamin A deficiency, you can develop nyctalopia or nite blindness. Eating carrots may possibly correct this.
Redheads are temperamental It has long been believed, by some at least, that people with red hair are temperamental, have a short fuse, or cannot be trusted, Red hair is the result of a recessive gene that tends to occur in people from Western Europe, where a larger percentage of the population has red hair. In some Irish and Scottish towns, that that received frequent visits from Vikings, that number rose to 15%. Different parts of the world have had varying biases toward redheads, but most of them have been negative. However, in some areas, at some times, it hasn't been bad to be a redhead. Having a redheaded child in Denmark was considered a blessing, and passing a redhead in the street in Poland was thought to be a lucky sign. On the more logical side, redheads do have some strikes against them. Redheads tend to have fair skin, so they often don't have enough pigment in their skin to filter the sunlight, which makes them susceptible to sunburns and skin cancer. But the rest is a wives' tale. There are no studies to suggest that redheads are more prone to outbursts of temper than those of any other hair color.