Old wives' tale

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An old wives' tale is a wisdom much like an urban legend, supposedly passed down by old wives to a younger generation. Today old wives' tales are also common among children's peer sex education in school playgrounds. Old wives' tales often concern pregnancy, puberty and nutrition.

Some old wives' tales are true, and those that aren't often have roots in truth or are used to trick people into doing something.

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Common old wives' tales

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Eating carrots improves your night vision

Half-truth

Carrots do contain vitamin A, which helps to maintain healthy vision, but they do not contain enough to make any significant difference. This tale started in the Second World War when the British spread a rumour that their plane spotters were eating carrots to give them improved vision, concealing the truth about the invention of radar.

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Having sex standing up is a contraceptive

False

This is an example of an old wives' tale in peer sex education. It may seem somewhat logical to a virgin but is not true. Sperm are capable of swimming up the vagina, through the uterus to the fallopian tubes, where they may fertilize an egg, regardless of how a woman is positioned during or after sexual intercourse.

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Chocolate causes acne

False

Chocolate does not cause acne; in fact, there is little evidence that one's diet affects acne at all. This is an example of an old wives' tale used to discourage something (the large quantities of chocolate some children eat is unhealthy in other ways) by associating it with something that people are afraid of. However, recent studies have proved that healthy diets can somewhat alter acne, but does not make a significant difference.

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Masturbation causes blindness

False

Again, this is an attempt to discourage masturbation (usually among young males) by associating it with blindness. In men, it is also associated with hairy palms and mental illness. Masturbation in females is sometimes said to cause infertility; this is equally false. (n.b. masturbation by a man may reduce fertility in the immediate future (a few days) by using up stored sperm, however this is not a long-term effect and should absolutely not be relied upon as birth control. The sperm will be replaced naturally over time). In fact, recent studies show that regular ejaculation, including from masturbation, may reduce risk of prostate cancer in men. [1]

The only correlation between the two is semen contains a large amount of zinc (as much as 0.25 milligrams of zinc to 1 mL of seminal fluid), and a deficiency in zinc (Although nearly impossible to achieve solely by masturbating) will cause a decline in a person's vision.

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Staying out in the cold without a coat causes pneumonia

False

Pneumonia is caused by bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae. Variations on this tale include that someone who stays out in the cold will catch a cold or the flu (which are both known to be caused by viruses).

This tale was not debunked until fairly recently. As public awareness of the cause of disease increased, the tale evolved to include a number of different pseudoscientific explanations. One popular explanation is that a low core body temperature negatively impacts the effectiveness of the human immune system. This intuitively makes sense, as we know fever, an elevated core body temperature, is one of the immune system's defenses against infection. However, studies have shown that there is no statistical correlation between lowered core body temperature and decreased immune response. Still, this old wives' tale, in its modern, pseudoscientific version, is still prevalent.

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Stepping on a rusty nail causes tetanus

False

Tetanus is an anaerobic bacterium. It is not the rust on the nail that is contributory, rather it is primarily the nature of the wound and secondarily any dirt mixed with the rust. Any deep wound that closes over first at the surface can result in an infection protected from oxygen. Under such conditions the tetanus bacterium can flourish in a person not appropriately vaccinated. The tetanus bacterium is commonly present both on skin and in soil. Before the availability of vaccine for tetanus the best treatment would be to keep the wound open so that it would heal from the bottom up, thus preventing the anaerobic conditions that tetanus thrives in from arising.

See also: Correlation implies causation (logical fallacy)

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Other old wives' tales

  • Shaving/cutting hair makes it grow thicker than before. (In fact, it leads to a coarse appearance since the thicker middle of the hair is exposed at the end, and the lack of flexibility makes the short hair feel rough as it begins to grow back)
  • Drinking coffee reduces body growth. (coffee is a stimulant and may increase body growth, or, more likely, may not have an effect at all. This old wives' tale was most probably begun by what is commonly known as "wishful thinking").
  • Having a longer penis makes female sex partners feel better during sex or reach orgasm more easily. (common topic of e-mail spam messages; in reality, this is a matter of personal preference, and many women find a longer penis simply uncomfortable due to the tendency to hit the cervix)
  • Chewing gum, if swallowed, remains inside your body for seven years. This is not at all true as chewing gum is excreted just like any other undigested piece of food or stray object swallowed.
  • Eating the crust of bread makes your hair curl.
  • A pimple on your tongue means that you have lied. This could possibly be the most unbelievable tale, ever.
  • If your chin does not shine yellow when you hold a buttercup underneath it then you do not like butter. A variation of this tale is that if it does shine yellow, you'll be rich.
  • Don't cross your eyes; they might stay that way.
  • If you go swimming less than an hour after you've eaten, you'll get cramps.
    • However, some scientists do in fact advise not to swim - or engage in any physical activity - for some time after eating, as the parasympathetic nervous system will kick in and start digestion, overriding the orders of the sympathetic nervous system which brings the body into the mode for physical activities.
    • This was parodied in the third Lemony Snicket book, The Wide Window, where the Lachrymose Leeches would eat you if you had not waited an hour after eating to swim.
  • If you smell dandelions, you'll wet your bed.
    • This may refer to the dandelion's well-known diuretic properties, but one would have to consume them; smelling would have no effect. Nonetheless, the idea that dandelions cause bedwetting is seen in the English folkname for the plant ("pissabed") and the common French name for it (pissenlit).
  • If you touch a toad, you'll get warts. (Warts are caused by a virus, and the growths on the back of a toad or its related animals are naturally present)
  • If you feel a burning in your ears, it means that somebody is talking about you. A variation on this is that if you hear a ringing in your ears, someone is thinking about you. In India, hiccups are a sign that you are being remembered by someone.
  • If you sneeze suddenly, someone is talking about you behind your back or thinking about you.
  • Only homosexuals get HIV. (HIV may be transmited through unsafe sexual practices or intravenous drug use regardless of one's sex or sexual orientation. This old wives' tale has become less common recently, as knowledge of HIV and AIDS has increased in the past several years.)
  • If you have a stye, you must have read or watched pornographic materials.
  • If your eyelids keep on blinking, something significant (either good or bad) is going to happen to you soon.
  • If you feed chocolate to a dog, it will get intestinal worms. (In fact the result of testing this tale may well be worse; chocolate intended for human consumption could kill the dog; one component of chocolate, theobromine, is a mild stimulant in humans, but quite toxic in some animals, including dogs.)
  • If you eat cold milk and cherries together, it is toxic. U.S. President Zachary Taylor was believed to have died because he consumed milk and cherries together.
  • Eating apples with cherries increases penis size.
  • Burying a chicken's foot in the garden cures common ailments.
  • A crow making noise on your roof toop foretells the arrival of a guest. (Epecially in Punjab)
  • If you take milk after eating rice, it can kill you.
  • If you whistle at night, burglars will break into your house.
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