"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
An entry of @Macronald sponsorship..
If interested,check it here.
This will end today friday. So write and submit now, you still have few hours left..
@z_graeden once again,.hit like,comment some old wives tail told to you or you heard and it meaning, subscribe.
What my grandma used to tell us before is not to go to sleep with a wet hair because we'll go insane 😅 out of curiosity, I tried doing it twice and thankfully my mind's still perfectly fine until now.