One of my friends is living with a...conservative couple. They just had their first kid, and the wife spends 30 minutes a day squeezing the infants' nose closed, so it will "not grow out of proportion". Lewis Carroll on acid couldn't create something less realistic. Focus: Folk wisdoms. Good ones, bad ones, fucking retarded ones.
I remember when I was a kid in the 80's a lot of idiots were still under the spell of that 50's classic "no swimming for two hours after eating!"...because you'll instantly develop cramps in the water as the lake fills your lungs and you sink into the black.
This one's actually real. It doesn't happen every time, but I did have it happen to me once. Crippling leg and foot cramps while swimming. If I hadn't been within reach of something to grab, I would have been in trouble.
Just float on your back untill they go away. Problem solved. My Mom used to tell my sisters and I all kinds of things when we were little, but I think it was mostly to instill better behavior than anything else: - If you sing at the dinner table, then you're going to marry a crazy person. - If you kiss boys, your teeth will fall out. - If you put your shoes on the table, then you're going to be poor. - If you wear dangly earrings, you'll get pregnant. - Eating bread crust makes your hair shiny. My Dad preferred the old nautical rhymes predicting the weather based on the color of the sunset/sunrise: 'Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.' That one actually is true a lot of the time.
Similarly, my mom taped all of her infant's ears to their head so that we wouldn't have dumbo ears. Supposedly my sister popped out with her car doors wide open and tape remedied her situation.
Does "masturbating will make you go blind" and "masturbating will give you hairy palms" fall into folk wisdom?
Grandma: "rbz90 eat all of your food, if you leave the last bit, a gypsy will come and beat you up." Grandma: "rbz90 if you put something in your mouth that isn't food, it will pierce your stomach and you will die, then a gypsy will come and beat you up." Grandma: "rbz90 if you have a sore throat, heat up some red wine and grind some black pepper in it, then drink. Also a gyspy might try to beat you up." (This one actually works).
It is mostly true, although the one I know is different, the translation would be something like 'An evening/night reddish sky, prepare the horses for the race. A morning reddish sky, prepare for the horses a place to stay in' and some silly ones; If a woman while pregnant ignores a craving for a certain food, the child will be born with a birth mark. (I think this originates from Sicily) Not sure if this is related but we have more than one character for what is known in the english speaking world as the bogeyman, either that or my parents really enjoyed scaring me. Apart from the normal bogeyman, we have a female version who lives in wells and eats any child who gets too close to a well, she's called the swallower. I was also lead to believe that a man carrying a sack went around and kidnapped misbehaving children, I forgot what he's called and there was another one who's known as 'the one with the long fingers,' probably a freddy krueger-ish bogeyman. Also, when I had hiccups my grandpa used to give me a spoon of sugar, not sure if it works but holding your breath does work.
"Smoking will stunt your growth." At 6'5" and a smoker since age 12, I challenge this. Unless they were referring to the penis.
Fucking retarded ones: People who think that cracking knuckles will lead to arthritis. It doesn't do anything. I was told I would have arthritis by the time I'm 13. Picking up and comforting colicky infants will spoil them. A 2 month old colicky infant is going to become spoiled for the rest of their life because they were picked up when they cried. Yeah. And of course, the whole canon of traditional / folk medicine. "Cooling" and "warming" herbs my ass.
Swallowing gums means it will stay in your stomach forever. Watermelon seeds will sprout in your belly. Broken mirrors being 7 years bad luck. "Starve a fever, bleach a cold"
Change those to 'dangly hoop' and she had a point. Because those girls be whores. If the girl's on top, she can't get pregnant. Gravity and shit.
How shitty a swimmer are you? I once had my legs cramp up upon hitting the water off the block and I still managed to finish the race (admittedly with an all time worst time). Unless all four your limps cramp, you should be fine. Focus: Rub some dirt on it.
Along the same lines, "walk it off; you'll be okay". Thanks coach, it's only the bone that's sticking out.
This one is still false ( <a class="postlink" href="http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/hourwait.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/hourwait.asp</a> ). Although food - water - cramps may have seemed related to you that day, the more likely correlation seems to be swimming - cramps. You know, on account of exerting the muscles in that leg and foot that cramped...
Some of my old school great aunts and grandmother are loaded with these. Caught a cold? Have some honey and black pepper. Broken bone? Let me make you some bone soup. Eating the brains of various animals makes you smarter. Want to ace that test? Rub this peanut oil into your head. Having some bad luck recently? It's a witch, you better head to the local "hakeem" (sort of like a faith based magician.) My favorite one of all is how many aches and pains are attributed to gas. My grandmother on my dads side felt pain in her abdomen for a long time. Her sisters told her it was just gas and would pass soon. Soon after, she was diagnosed with liver that had spread all over. Died soon after...all because of some gas. OH my god I almost forgot. My mom had a version of the bogeyman who would come get me if I didn't fall asleep. She called him Billybob. I have no idea where she got this from, but for a long time I was fucking petrified of Billybob.
Mom? Focus: My grandparents lived not too far from a Hutterite colony. Grandpa always told us that if we didn't behave, the Hutterites would come at night and take us away, and grind us up for food. I still have a pretty healthy fear of Hutterites.
I had The Man With the Garbage Bag. If I ever misbehaved and it didn't merit an ass kicking from my grandmother I was told the man with the garbage bag was coming and that she would gladly give me to him. He would take away children, puppies and kittens and throws them in the landfill. I avoided the garbage truck like the plague as a kid. Focus: Measuring your height is bad luck because dead people are measured to be fit in a coffin. I wish I were kidding but some people actually believe that.
I had a cousin whose mom threatened to sell her to the Indians. I'm not sure which is worse - a life of servitude ringing up Big Gulps or being stuck playing left field in Cleveland.