Old Wives Tale in Today's World

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4 years ago

"Don't go swimming right after lunch -you'll get a cramp and drown."

"Sleeping with wet hair causes you to catch colds.. "

Alright, how many of us here still have grannies and grandpaps? They're amazing people,right? 'cause they will spoil us from time to time.. Am suddenly missing my maternal grandparents while writing this.

Most often than not, we hear them say do's and don'ts to avoid us getting sick or things they do to help us recover from sickness and other things to protect us from harm.

This mixed bag of sayings, folk customs and superstitions came to be known as old wives tales. The phrase is an old one, found in the works of plato thousands of years ago. Nearly every language seems to have an equivalent phrase.

But in today's world, Tv, medical science and the internet put the old wives tale out of work. The ultimate putdown for a piece of advice is to call it an old wives tale. According to Compact Oxford Dictionary, "the term is defined as a widely held traditional belief that is now thought to be unscientific or incorrect."

Yet these stories persist in similar forms all over the world. One reason is that some- like one's grandmom's admonition about loud music or unpleasant loud machine sounds are true. An iPod blaring in your ear, or any other loud sound can damage any sensitive hair cells in the inner ear, causing permanent hearing damage.

However, have you wondered how old wives tale got started? According to Mary Chamberlain, professor at Oxford Brookes University and author of Old wives Tales, "Its origin are as varied as the tales themselves, foe medical ideas and drugs have been exchanged and traded across and within cultures for thousands of years."

Have you heard this oldwives tale forcast, "Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning?" It is one of the oldest one and was used around the globe. In fact, it's pure science. Accdg to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "This old saying has actually has a scientific explanation. It relates to moving high and low surface-pressure weather systems, and the way that the colours in sunlight are scattered differently by dirty and clean atmospheres.

The sayings mentioned at the beginning of this article were wrong. The durable belief that swimming too soon after eating can result to stomach cramps and drowning is partially true.Yet today, it was said that its harmless but you need time to digest first your food before doing vigorous swimming.

Sleeping with wet hair, causes one to catch colds is also wrong. The fact that colds is caused by viruses not cold weather, or wet hair. People tend to catch colds during the winter season because these viruses are spread easily indoors, where the air is often warm and stagnant and being in close contact with family or people who have colds..

Another one is "the shape of pregnancy predicts the gender of the baby." Well, I must admit that this was true for me,it was confirmed by ultrasound but I couldn't find the relevance of the two.. I had a neat bump that sticks out infront when I was pregnant with my boys and more spread out around the middle with my daughter.The oldwives tail is correct. It's a coincidence, perhaps.Or anyone who knows the scientific explanation of it?

Why do so many people still believe in these tales? One reason is we have been taught to trust and obey what we hear from our mothers and their mothers and to all mothers back into the aeons.

What about you, have you heard any of it from your mom or your granny perhaps? lets hear it out at the comment section

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4 years ago

Comments

What my grandma used to tell us before is not to go to sleep with a wet hair because we'll go insane πŸ˜… out of curiosity, I tried doing it twice and thankfully my mind's still perfectly fine until now.

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4 years ago

Nice

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4 years ago

Grandmothers have many tips that are true acquired through life experience that they learned from their parents. and they were checked by them. Of the advice of the grandmother it is true: staying in wet clothes for winter caused a cold. eating a lot of animal fat causes a headache. It must be because of the cholesterol.

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4 years ago

yeah.. some are true,some not.. yet as respect to them we still consider it and interpret it in a way that its reasonable..

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4 years ago

Yeah I have heard such sayings from my grand mother. Some of them really happens to be correct while others tend to be false. I am not getting alot at the moment, let me share one. It was common myth of old people to not cut nails in night, but this has no scientific value. It was asked because in old times there was no lighting system like todays so it was of great danger to cut the finger with nails at night. But as of now you can easily cut them at night.

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4 years ago

yeah it has 50-50 probability.. I think our elders say those one to avoid accidents, its just that they dont tell us.. and today, we interpret it realistically

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4 years ago

Sa atin lang meron nito,,yung pagiging mapamanhiin/superstitious or beliefs na pinama sa atin ng mga ninuno natin

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4 years ago

It can be found around the world if you read the article,it was all stated in their

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4 years ago

Yup meron din sa iba pero mas unique yung satin

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4 years ago

oo bro,, iba2 πŸ˜…

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4 years ago

This not an old wives tale but I missed hearing my mother her experiences that made her a strong and not dictating. My grandparents died when were still young but I'm glad that my children expirienced being spoiled by their grandparents.

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4 years ago

some are not just tales for it has scientific explanation but mostly wala..tulad ng magkukumot pag may fever para pawisan, which is wrong nman. ksi lalong tataas ang lagnat pag nagkumot

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4 years ago

Pinagsasabihan ako dati mg mama ko pag kinukutuhan k ang ang anak ko pag gabiπŸ˜†

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4 years ago

I am still with my mom and grandma, and I must say I really experience these superstitions you mentioned. Like they don't want me to sleep with wet hair. And, have u heard about you should not take a bath when you have your period coz it will make you go crazy, lol.

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4 years ago

yeps the former,I only heard of it from my lowland classmAtes that they dont bath during their period so as not to stop the flow... make a research of it,if it has a scientific basis😊

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4 years ago

Will do. I'm confused too.

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4 years ago

Good luck mam, Oo nga dami talagang ganyan ang mga olds natin, pero wala namang mawawala satin kong sundin sila, although ang iba minsan nakakatawa na pero ganun talaga eh hehe.. Good evening po. . Medyo busy lately di ako masyado active ☺

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4 years ago

helo their, opo namiss k nmin, pro we understand as we have life outside rc nman. yep pero minsan parang kj na jeje

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4 years ago

It's funny that even after knowing about their irrelevance in this era, we still follow these wives tales out of habit and because we grew up with them

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4 years ago

exactly, parang aral na ipinasa sa atin. pro have you heard ung pag may lagnat ay magkukumot pra pawisan.?

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4 years ago

Yeah i heard that πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚ pinapagawa yun. It does have a basis behind it though so o don't mind

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4 years ago

scientific b yun basis nya? 😊

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4 years ago

Kind of. You know how heat can potentially heat a virus? More body heat means a rise in your temp and a way to kill the cold virus. Sweating it out is only a side effect of that though

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4 years ago