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Old wives’ tales which turned out to be true


Still Waters

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I found the chicken soup one especially surprising since I've often thought that eating warm soup like that would just help with a sore throat or making the person eating it feel warmer. :D Maybe I'm just simple.

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We should have a thread about all the ones that weren't true..  I'm particularly annoyed at all the hundreds of hours I lost when waiting for one hour before I could swim after eating...

(Actually, IIRC, it was one hour for a hot meal, 30 mins for a cold one...)  Grr.

Oh, and I did NOT go blind.

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10 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

We should have a thread about all the ones that weren't true..  I'm particularly annoyed at all the hundreds of hours I lost when waiting for one hour before I could swim after eating...

(Actually, IIRC, it was one hour for a hot meal, 30 mins for a cold one...)  Grr.

Oh, and I did NOT go blind.

Oh geez...my parents made me wait to swim, too. 

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10 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

We should have a thread about all the ones that weren't true..  I'm particularly annoyed at all the hundreds of hours I lost when waiting for one hour before I could swim after eating...

(Actually, IIRC, it was one hour for a hot meal, 30 mins for a cold one...)  Grr.

Oh, and I did NOT go blind.

Ok, maybe not. But were your dead relatives watching you? The jury's still out on that one. Lol. 

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Since I've worked outside all my life in all weather's I can vouch for the fact that you can feel bad weather in you bones after years of getting wet through,my knees are extremely achey just before it rainshows or its gonna get cold 

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There's a handful of weather/farming ones that are true. Like red skies at night/morning, often a ring around the moon does predict precipitation. Pinecones really do tell you the coming weather, if it's dry they open, if it's wet, they close.

Phenology can be accurate too though it is often dismissed as wives tales. The right time to plant corn is when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrels ear, Japanese Beetles do show up when the morning glories start to climb, and so on. The reason why phenology can work is because at one time farmers had to use these sorts of cues to do their farming tasks, they didn't rely on calendars and counting off frost dates and utilize growing zone information like we do now.

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I'm not sure if it counts but I reckon if people who  live in glass houses throw stones .......

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17 hours ago, Matt221 said:

I'm not sure if it counts but I reckon if people who  live in glass houses throw stones .......

Nah... That's an idiom, not a wives' tale.

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17 minutes ago, rashore said:

Nah... That's an idiom, not a wives' tale.

That's OK then I'll give it a try......  oh yeah and the last fried mouse I ate cured my whooping cough

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9 minutes ago, Matt221 said:

That's OK then I'll give it a try......  oh yeah and the last fried mouse I ate cured my whooping cough

Lol, that one is a wives tale, and an icky one at that!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎8‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 8:28 AM, Matt221 said:

That's OK then I'll give it a try......  oh yeah and the last fried mouse I ate cured my whooping cough

I would have tried just about anything when I had whooping cough a few years ago. Got it from my baby niece. Actually couldn't get out of bed for 4 days...thought I was coughing up a lung. Get your shots people!

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My grandmother had tons of old wives tales...she grew up on a farm. One I remember was if you saw cows laying down in a field that meant it would rain later. Oddly I've noticed that happening. What one has to do with the other I couldn't say. It's just you hardly ever see them laying down.

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I always knew the chicken soup one was based on fact. Warm soup helps loosens congestion in the throat and has anti inflammatory properties. 

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On 8/25/2017 at 0:35 PM, skliss said:

My grandmother had tons of old wives tales...she grew up on a farm. One I remember was if you saw cows laying down in a field that meant it would rain later. Oddly I've noticed that happening. What one has to do with the other I couldn't say. It's just you hardly ever see them laying down.

We knew if the cows headed to the bush, there was going to be a storm.

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On 25/08/2017 at 8:35 PM, skliss said:

My grandmother had tons of old wives tales...she grew up on a farm. One I remember was if you saw cows laying down in a field that meant it would rain later. Oddly I've noticed that happening. What one has to do with the other I couldn't say. It's just you hardly ever see them laying down.

It's all to do with air pressure,Heat comfort and summat to do with milk freshness .... or so an old wife told me

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Slightly off the old wives tales topic but along similar lines, I got caught out once by an old gypsy woman she sold me a tiny silver cat for a couple of quid( i bourght it to stop her pestering us) saying" keep this in your wallet and it'll never be empty" afterward I realised errrr no cause it won't it's got a little silver cat in it lol

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One popular old wives tale my grandmother always told me was that talking to your plants makes them grow better. She always had plants in her house and I remember her literally sitting down, getting right up next to them, and having a full on (one-sided) conversation with them. :blink:

I thought it was a bunch of bunk for most of my life, until one day I read an article where it scientifically stated the true basis of the claim.

Basically, plants breath backwards to humans. They 'breath' in carbon dioxide in the air and produce oxygen for us to breath. When we spend any significant length of time 'talking' to plants up close, we're basically giving them loads of carbon dioxide from our breath. It's essentially like watering them or giving them lots of sunlight.

So yes, 'talking' to plants actually does make them grow better! :lol:

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9 hours ago, Aquila King said:

One popular old wives tale my grandmother always told me was that talking to your plants makes them grow better. She always had plants in her house and I remember her literally sitting down, getting right up next to them, and having a full on (one-sided) conversation with them. :blink:

I thought it was a bunch of bunk for most of my life, until one day I read an article where it scientifically stated the true basis of the claim.

Basically, plants breath backwards to humans. They 'breath' in carbon dioxide in the air and produce oxygen for us to breath. When we spend any significant length of time 'talking' to plants up close, we're basically giving them loads of carbon dioxide from our breath. It's essentially like watering them or giving them lots of sunlight.

So yes, 'talking' to plants actually does make them grow better! :lol:

Hmm.  Can you cite the study?  Certainly, there are (rather questionable) articles out there claiming this, but where are the numbers?  I found this at a University site, which seems to indicate they couldn't find any real evidence for it:

http://news.psu.edu/story/141343/2008/08/25/research/probing-question-does-talking-plants-help-them-grow

 

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40 minutes ago, ChrLzs said:

Hmm.  Can you cite the study?  Certainly, there are (rather questionable) articles out there claiming this, but where are the numbers?  I found this at a University site, which seems to indicate they couldn't find any real evidence for it:

http://news.psu.edu/story/141343/2008/08/25/research/probing-question-does-talking-plants-help-them-grow

 

:huh: Really? I was just casually recalling something from when I was in high school. You mean to tell me it was probably actually bunk after all!? :lol: Lol, Priceless!!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 29/08/2017 at 4:02 PM, ChrLzs said:

Hmm.  Can you cite the study?  Certainly, there are (rather questionable) articles out there claiming this, but where are the numbers?  I found this at a University site, which seems to indicate they couldn't find any real evidence for it:

http://news.psu.edu/story/141343/2008/08/25/research/probing-question-does-talking-plants-help-them-grow

 

I can remember that the nurses used to take potted plants out of a patients room at night and bring them back in the morning in tje hospitals back home.

jmccr8

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Old tales that seem to have a glimmer of truth are like using Astrological sun signs to get insight into the personality of an individual.  Both are based on long-term observation.  No mystery or magic needed when observing the same traits over generations.

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An interesting study about the receptiveness of plants to emotions is the Backster effect.

https://www.nytimes.com/news/the-lives-they-lived/2013/12/21/cleve-backster/

However, his work is disputed, I think it's because of the lack of greenthumbs.

There's actually quite a bit on this subject.

Although Paul from the bible warns us not to give into old-wivestales, I've found this not to be easy because there's usually a grain of wisdom hidden within.

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I remember my folks telling me if I ate watermelon seeds It would grow in my tummy. I stopped eating watermelon for years.  

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When birds disappear, its danger you have to fear....they seem to have an instinct when a big storm is due and they certainly don't stay in trees,in videos of the Japanese Tsunami flocks of seagulls were seen heading inland,so maybe this old wives tale is true. 

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