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Joined: Jan 2005
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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Jan 2005
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I was wondering... Most of what we now call "Urban Myths" were once called "Wives' Tales". When did wives' tales become urban myths?
Is there any difference between the two? As far as I can tell generally an "Urban Myth" is the retelling of a older period Wives' Tale in a more modern setting.
Are there other terms that refer to these type of tall stories (I guess that is one!).
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Good question. Snopes has a glossary which might be a good starting point: http://snopes.com/info/glossary.asp
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Seems to me that whereas Urban Legends relate tales that are dreadful warnings - often about violent outcomes, like the one about a gang initiation rite being to shoot the first driver that flashes his lights at you, Old Wives Tales usually have a more domestic context. For instance the OWT that eating dandelion leaves causes incontinence in children.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
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re: For instance the OWT that eating dandelion leaves causes incontinence in children
it that is an OWT, its also has an element of truth. chemicals in the plants, (similar ones are found in aspargas) do have a dieretic effect!
OTC 'diet aides' use plant extracts from both dandelions and asparagas to stimulate weight loss, (they do!, and slightly dehydrate you as well at the same time.)
many OWT's are superstitious, but many have elements of truth. OWT are sets of general rules --that were often dismissed by science.. but many of them have been 'proven' true (even if only partially true) over the years.
dandelions were called 'piss in beds', too, a name the rightfully earned!
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
have a dieretic effect Really? Oh, yay; I'll have to start eating more asparagus (sorry, I can't work up much enthusiasm for dandelion greens): I'm at "that age"...
Better not be canned, though, as my memory of it tells me it surely must have salt added. Fresh is much yummier, anyway. Thank you!
EDIT: frozen; good idea. We don't always have good-quality fresh.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the frozen ones are quite good..
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Holy cow!!! Look at what's on Faldage's link: The Snopes were a family of characters weaved throughout the works of Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer William Faulkner. When David Mikkelson, creator of snopes.com, first came onto the Internet in the late 1980s, he worried even back in those relatively uncrowded days that no one would remember yet another David. He was thus inspired to adopt a nom-de-Net, selecting one that honored those fictional Faulknerian characters, and began signing his newsgroups posts as "snopes."
And, and,...I am fairly a-tremble with excitement:
Glurge is a term specific to snopes.com, coined in 1998. Already in its short lifespan it has reached across the Internet and has appeared in the print media a number of times, and it may well soon make the final breakthrough by appearing in dictionaries as a bona fide entry. The word was invented by Patricia Chapin, a member of the urban legends discussion mailing list run in conjunction with this site. At a loss for words to describe the retching sensation this then-unnamed category of stories subjected her to, she fashioned a word that simultaneously named the genre and described its effect.
Oh, how VERY satisfying it is to know exactly how a word came into being! That's what I want to know about ALL of them!!!
I thought this was interesting also: Ostension is a folkloric term for the process of unwittingly acting out or mimicking the greater part (if not the entirety) of an urban legend that is already part of the body of lore. More simply, if the events described in an urban legend which had been around since 1950 actually did indeed spontaneously play out in real life in 1992, that would be an example of ostension.
Is this related to ostentation?
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Or perhaps related to extension...
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
We have an old wives' tale about the cover of acorns on the ground in the fall. If heavy, heavy winter; if light, light winter. We had hardly any acorns this year, and our late fall was very much like late summer. It will be interesting to see what this winter brings because fall sure as heck didn't bring many acorns. Poor deer. Poor squirrels.
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 95
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 95 |
If my Latin memory serves me well, ostension is from the verb ostendo (ostendere, ostendi, ostensus), to show/display/explain, and acting something out is simply displaying something. Thus, ostension becomes unwittingly acting out or mimicking the greater part (if not the entirety) of an urban legend that is already part of the body of lore. And yes, both extension and ostension (as well as retension, intend, subtend, distend, tense, etc.) come from the Latin tendere (to stretch).
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