Thursday, December 18, 2008

Debunking myths

As a child various pronouncements used to get on my wick, curtailing as it were, my longing to get free of the house and sit where ever the hell I wanted and nibble in peace.
For example.
'Don't go outside with wet hair you'll catch your death.'- hmm, wet hair equals death catching, okay.
'Get up off the ground; you'll get a cold in your kidneys.' ( ?)
'Don't stare at the sun; you'll go blind.' (?)
'Eat your carrots if you want good eyesight. ( lies, as a carrot lover and blind as bat I can pour real frothy vitriol on this one)
'Eat the crusts on your bread it will put hairs on your chest.' (This one came from Gamma's husband. Why any eight year old girl would want hair on their chest remains a mystery.)
'Don't be mauling those dogs! You'll get worms' ( oh for the love of...)
'Don't wash your hair everyday; you'll strip all the oils out of it' (oily hair=dirty hair, oh hooray, at least you won't catch death)
'Don't make faces; if the wind changes you'll be stuck with that face.' (gamma, after a few gins, and while her own face was making any number of weird contortions)
'If you want to get rid of warts, tie a couple of knots in some string and bury it, the warts will fall off over night) ( ?)
'Don't let cats sleep in your bed at night, they will steal your breath.' ( I can think of MANY reasons not to share a bed with cats, that they might be in league with death isn't one of them)
'Don't skip, you'll damage your spine.' ( ?, Gamma)
'Always tuck your vest in or you'll get a cold in your spine.' ( hmm, Gamma worried a great deal about cold and spines)
'Hot whiskey with five cloves will cure a flu/cold/Ebola virus' (vile)
'Eating an orange every day will stop you from catching the flu.' ( and yet I did catch flu once when I was young, and curiously enough I gaVe it to Gamma: we were both confined to bed for days and puked like puking champions- on the forth day of shivering and moaning I managed to get as far as the chair in the kitchen where I sat alternatively rattling or sweating. Gamma's husband discovered me and insisted I drink a 'cure' which I promptly brought back up on me, the chair, the fireplace, him, and just about anything else with a three metre radius.)
'Always keep a window open in your bedroom at night or you'll smother.' ( no wonder we got colds)
And lastly but by NO means leastly, 'If you hear a banshee scream on the night of the full moon she's going to take one of your family before the next new moon.' ( God Damn it Gamma! If you live in an area SURROUNDED by foxes that one can keep a girl going for years. But oh no, every morning full moon or not my mother was still around)


Any way, that was my childhood, and I'm sure you were burdened down with even more pearls of wisdom from your betters and elders. But the reason I'm caught on this today is because I read a pretty bloomin' interesting article in the Guardian this morning which made me sit up and take notice. For dammit if I didn't think half of them were true. Which means I am more like Gamma than any thirty-six year old needs to be. Eeek.


Today's eighties nostalgia is for Andraste.

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19 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

well thanks for debunking myths.

10:22 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your ruining everything !!

10:23 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

I'M SORRY! (Blame Gamma, she won't mind)

10:36 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

Yeah, all of those are hokum piseógs but don't sit on a warm radiator cos you'll get piles - fact.

11:08 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Really? Why? Why would that cause piles?

11:41 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure I've heard each and every one of those at some point.

Most Irish children probably have.

11:50 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

It just does, and you'll meet the devil if you walk three times, backwards, around the 'black' church.

12:19 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eep! I believed all of those two! I even FEEL warmer when I have a hat on. Blimey, I'm suggestible. I never believed eating carrots would put hairs on my chest, as my father told me (this, you'll note, was some form of encouragement on his part, despite the fact that he only had daughters). But hurray! Now we can give our friends' childers chocolate and they can't pull the hyperactive card any more. Yippee!

12:23 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

It's bizzare, I know children who behave as though they have injested crack cocaine after a can of coke and a packet of smarties. And I also feel MUCH warmer with a hat on.
I have a disgusting pain in my back. I walked into town and stepped off a kerb which was deeper than I thought. How the hell does something like that cause backache but kickboxing and weight lifting do not?

4:45 p.m.  
Blogger Andraste said...

A Viddy! For MEEEEE!

I'm touched. That chick was much skinnier and prettier than I, but damn I loved that hair.

I remember being told that sitting on concrete if the temperature was below freezing you'd get hemorrhoids.

EGAD!

6:03 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Jaysus, plles seem to be rampant no matter the temperature.

6:27 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's an article, not a fact

"to see if there was any published scientific evidence to support them. In many cases, they found several studies that completely undermined them"

Not that there was no evidence to validate them.

Nor that 'twas proven wrong

Bit worrying that you read it & therefore it's true. Ahhh I might be missing the point though.

The back gets spannered by unexpected moves no matter how in shape it is. Self proven. Too bloody often too ;)

9:30 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

So it would seem. Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow and it will have magically fixed itself.

10:28 p.m.  
Blogger laughykate said...

I thought that if you ate your crusts your hair went curly.

11:04 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Msybe you get curly chest hair?

9:33 a.m.  
Blogger Pat said...

The one that really used to stick in my craw was when we returned from holiday - desperately sad -and Mum would shatter the mood with her :
'All hands to the pump!'
We didn't even have a bloody pump.

9:43 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

hah, that does sound annoying. 'Cheer up it might never happen' drives me up the bloody walls too.

10:55 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's my childhood summed up right there

5:27 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to get and still do get "Oh sweet suffering jeeeeeeeeeesus will you ever wear a longer top Babs you will get a cold in your kidneys" I was given the "long body shortish legs" thing from my Dad's side of the family, even seemingly long tops always rise, my kidney area is always on display, well mostly, I have never suffered such a cold or any other kidney related problems.
Also "don't slam the door you'll break the glass" was shouted all the time...this unfortunately happened one day, oops!

5:43 p.m.  

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