# What urban legend have you heard repeated as fact the most times? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 9, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660 "2008-04-09T20:48:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/201 "2008-04-12T01:32:12Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I often hear it repeated as known fact that Eskimos have more than 40 words for snow. [The truth is more complicated.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010202.html) [/QUOTE] They’re just really horrible spellers. ---
**Author:** ![pprgrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f6c823/32.png) [@pprgrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pprgrl)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/202 "2008-04-12T01:51:58Z")
[QUOTE=aruvqan] I do actually work with a woman named Latrine. _sigh_ [/QUOTE] “You mean you changed your name **to** Latrine?” “Yeah, it used to be Shithouse!” ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/203 "2008-04-12T01:56:32Z")
[QUOTE=Gala Matrix Fire] Just that Febreze is deadly poison to pets and if you use Febreze on your couch or your curtains or anything in your home, your pets will die a horrible death. [/QUOTE] Oh… so that’s what really happened to Lenny. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/204 "2008-04-12T02:59:16Z")
My late mother believed the story about a young mother in a home for wayward girls who named her child after “that nice name on the bracelet you gave me”: ‘positive Wasserman’. (Named after a German bacteriologist, the Wasserman test detects syphillis). Not a UL, but I always loved the satirical author’s dust-cover resume (from Patrick Dennis I think) that claimed the subject had received, “… a Pulitzer, a Peabody, and a Wasserman”. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/205 "2008-04-12T04:02:05Z")
[QUOTE=Drain Bead] I also hear Barack-Obama-Is-A-Muslim a lot from random rednecks. [/QUOTE] I often hear that southerners are not as bright as other people. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/206 "2008-04-12T16:24:45Z")
One that I still hear occasionally and, to my embarassment, used to repeat (it was actually the Dope that corrected me in my earliest visits) was that [African-American hematology pioneer Charles Drew](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Drew) died from a car wreck because the whites-only E.R. either wouldn’t treat him at all or wouldn’t give him a blood transfusion of blood taken from a white person. This one was famously repeated on an episode of M_A_S\*H and has even made its way into some reputable seeming non-fiction books. The truth is that his injuries were just too severe to be saved (the car accident snapped his neck). While Jim Crow south was undeniably horrible there were actually few whites-only hospitals in small towns (though there were in big cities, where other hospitals for blacks or whites only were nearby), though it is true that one of Drew’s biggest frustrations was that many hospitals continued to segregate blood by the race of the donor long after it was conclusively proven there was absolutely no difference. An almost identical tale is told about blues great Bessie Smith which inspired an [Edward Albee play](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Bessie_Smith). As with Drew, Smith died because her injuries were simply too great (and in fact one of the first people on the scene was a white surgeon who happened to be driving down the same road just after the accident and who treated all of the injured without regard to color). This U.L. was repeated by Smith’s half-sister [“Diamond Teeth” Mary McClain](http://www.aaregistry.com/detail.php?id=2461) , also a blues singer, more than half a century after Smith’s death, who even claimed to be present at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/207 "2008-04-12T16:32:37Z")
There was a reported scam in the UK a while back where a company would supposedly call you with an automated message while you’re charged £10/min for the call. The student’s union posted messages all over the place about it and I got a few emails from a friend (who is admittedly a bit of a spammer). I googled it to see what was up and [ICSTIS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICSTIS) said it was all a hoax. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/208 "2008-04-13T01:43:46Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] One that I still hear occasionally and, to my embarassment, used to repeat (it was actually the Dope that corrected me in my earliest visits) was that [African-American hematology pioneer Charles Drew](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Drew) died from a car wreck because the whites-only E.R. either wouldn’t treat him at all or wouldn’t give him a blood transfusion of blood taken from a white person. This one was famously repeated on an episode of M_A_S\*H and has even made its way into some reputable seeming non-fiction books. The truth is that his injuries were just too severe to be saved (the car accident snapped his neck). While Jim Crow south was undeniably horrible there were actually few whites-only hospitals in small towns (though there were in big cities, where other hospitals for blacks or whites only were nearby), though it is true that one of Drew’s biggest frustrations was that many hospitals continued to segregate blood by the race of the donor long after it was conclusively proven there was absolutely no difference. An almost identical tale is told about blues great Bessie Smith which inspired an [Edward Albee play](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Bessie_Smith). As with Drew, Smith died because her injuries were simply too great (and in fact one of the first people on the scene was a white surgeon who happened to be driving down the same road just after the accident and who treated all of the injured without regard to color). This U.L. was repeated by Smith’s half-sister [“Diamond Teeth” Mary McClain](http://www.aaregistry.com/detail.php?id=2461) , also a blues singer, more than half a century after Smith’s death, who even claimed to be present at the time. [/QUOTE] This one features in The Human Stain by Phillip Roth. It’s hard to tell whether Roth believes/believed it or he just knows his character would believe and repeat the story. If ever called on it he can claim the latter. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/209 "2008-04-13T01:53:56Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] One that I still hear occasionally and, to my embarassment, used to repeat (it was actually the Dope that corrected me in my earliest visits) was that [African-American hematology pioneer Charles Drew](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Drew) died from a car wreck because the whites-only E.R. either wouldn’t treat him at all or wouldn’t give him a blood transfusion of blood taken from a white person. This one was famously repeated on an episode of M_A_S\*H and has even made its way into some reputable seeming non-fiction books. The truth is that his injuries were just too severe to be saved (the car accident snapped his neck). While Jim Crow south was undeniably horrible there were actually few whites-only hospitals in small towns (though there were in big cities, where other hospitals for blacks or whites only were nearby), though it is true that one of Drew’s biggest frustrations was that many hospitals continued to segregate blood by the race of the donor long after it was conclusively proven there was absolutely no difference.. [/QUOTE] Interestingly, I spent some time looking at newspaper accounts of this UL. The ironic thing is that it was perpetuated(not started), in large part by the rise of Black awareness in the late 1960’s/early-mid 1970’s. You see people like Dick Gregory writing newspaper columns repeating it. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/210 "2008-04-13T02:18:54Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] There’s an older version where a black woman names her daughter “Vagina” because she overheard doctors and nurses saying it and thought it sounded pretty. [/QUOTE] Or Chlymidia. ---
**Author:** ![buttons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8edcca/32.png) [@buttons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttons)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/211 "2008-04-13T02:22:07Z")
[QUOTE=tesseract] Augh, there are so many I’m officially sick of hearing. I can’t think of the ones that annoy me the most right now, but some are the one about how Stanford University was started, the one about **how toilets flush the other way in the southern hemisphere** , and maybe glitter/the gynecologist visit? I think the thing that annoys me the most about these things is the I-shall-continue-in-my-idiocy-reaction reported above about the pull tabs. I would say that 75% of the time when I have forwarded a Snopes link to someone, they have said something like “Well, I thought it wasn’t true, but you can’t be too careful,” or something equally asinine. Yes, you can be too careful, too stupid, and too ignorant. [/QUOTE] That’s no urban legend. Toilets do indeed flush the other way on the other side of the hemisphere. I believe there was a podcast about it where one guy from the US flushed his toilet, and another guy on the same show flushed his toilet in Australia, and indeed, it flushed the other way. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/212 "2008-04-13T02:39:59Z")
[QUOTE=buttons] That’s no urban legend. Toilets do indeed flush the other way on the other side of the hemisphere. I believe there was a podcast about it where one guy from the US flushed his toilet, and another guy on the same show flushed his toilet in Australia, and indeed, it flushed the other way. [/QUOTE] Gee, one data point so it must be true! :dubious: [Look here.](http://straightdope.com/classics/a1_161.html) [Or here.](http://au.answers.yahoo.com/answers2/frontend.php/question?qid=20070830064508AAj4DIa) [Or this idiot here, voted “best answer”, who says the Coriolis effect will swirl toilets clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.](http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080229230223AAgETcR) (Coriolis actually says the _opposite_: clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, counter/anticlockiwse in the Northern.) [Here’s a Wikipedia site that gets the directions right.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect) > [@](#): > > Some sources that incorrectly attribute draining direction to the Coriolis force also get the direction wrong. If the Coriolis force were the dominant factor, drain vortices would spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern. Also, explain to me why (and I just checked this out of curiosity–luckily they drain in opposite directions, like my sinks), my basement toilet drains counterclockwise, and my upstairs toilet drains clockwise. Sorry, this one just really grates on my nerves for some reason. It’s so idiotic and so easily testable, that I don’t understand why so many people fall for it. Go ahead, try it. Go around and observe which direction the toilet water spins for every toilet you flush. I _guarantee_ you will not see uniformity in the results. One result may be biased, but that would be because of the dominant manufacturer and the direction in which the nozzles are pointed in the toilet. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/213 "2008-04-13T08:09:35Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] Also, explain to me why (and I just checked this out of curiosity–luckily they drain in opposite directions, like my sinks), my basement toilet drains counterclockwise, and my upstairs toilet drains clockwise [/QUOTE] Presumably your house is lying sideways across the equator. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/214 "2008-04-13T08:18:36Z")
[QUOTE=buttons] That’s no urban legend. Toilets do indeed flush the other way on the other side of the hemisphere. I believe there was a podcast about it where one guy from the US flushed his toilet, and another guy on the same show flushed his toilet in Australia, and indeed, it flushed the other way. [/QUOTE] The thing is, toilets in Australia work completely differently to toilets in the US; in that they basically unleash a torrent of water from the cistern and when it subsides, the waste is gone- unlike US toilets which seem to have some sort of swirly/disappearing water thing happening. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Credible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a8b319/32.png) [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/215 "2008-04-13T10:19:33Z")
I think the one I have heard repeated as fact the most times in person is the one about a Taco Hell employee taking a dump in the refried beans. I’ve heard that one from a few different people who have worked at different Taco Hells in both Ohio and Florida. They _all_ have worked with someone, who at some point decided it would be funny to drop a deuce in there. Apparently, at every Taco Hell in the country, there are employees pooping in the beans. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/216 "2008-04-13T13:47:08Z")
[QUOTE=Justin Credible] I think the one I have heard repeated as fact the most times in person is the one about a Taco Hell employee taking a dump in the refried beans. I’ve heard that one from a few different people who have worked at different Taco Hells in both Ohio and Florida. They _all_ have worked with someone, who at some point decided it would be funny to drop a deuce in there. Apparently, at every Taco Hell in the country, there are employees pooping in the beans. [/QUOTE] Judging by taste, that one may be true. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2008, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/217 "2008-04-13T19:24:55Z")
[QUOTE=MsWhatsit] You only use 10% of your brain. Well, maybe that’s true for the people that KEEP FRICKING REPEATING THIS STUPID FACTOID TO ME. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=exclamation!] This is the UL I hear most often as well. I’ve got an acquaintance that has stopped talking to me because of it. We got into an argument after a few drinks, he likes the idea that we might have undiscovered super powers in the untapped 90% of our minds. Like invisibility or the telekinesis. I just like the idea of being right. [/QUOTE] I was so sure that someone would bring this up that I word-searched for it in the thread. I didn’t catch it at first, but that probably was ony because I was a bit too early that day (the 9th). And at the same time, I didn’t have the opportunity to offer it myself. * * * I first heard of this, outside of a circa '65 GL comic book(Gil Kane art!), in a letter-of-comment to Life Magazine, in the late 70’s. There had been an article about [William Shockley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley#Beliefs_about_populations_and_genetics), and said Nobel Prize inventor’s claim that AA’s _ **AVERAGE** _ 15 IQ points below whites. He advocated that incentives for their (AA’s) brightest to reproduce more, and incentives for their least bright to reproduce less would catch them up and the general quality of life for everyone. Naturally, not everyone was enthused, and many considered this a merely less ferocious form of racism, and his measurements suspect to say the least. By his own lights, however, he was just being _nobel_ about the whole thing. But in the letter one woman claimed that the solution was really for everyone to go beyond the 10% barrier, which would swamp the mere 15 point average difference and make it trivial. * * * Years later, one a street corner I encountered a “soapbox” boob who was espousing _One World under God_, a global-America movement that was really a front for the Unification Church. Long story short, he felt that if America and the world were to stop being so self-indulgent and vice-oriented, tremendous progress of all kinds would be made. (He launched into the subject of child pornography as soon as I mentioned Freedom of Speech.) Getting to that extra 90% was one of the many accomplishments that would be facilitated by his idea of moral reform, which involved the government eliminating personal freedom wherever such meant allowing people to indulge in “vice.” (I gathered that this, in his opinion, included of course, but was not limited to, child pornography.) Of course, any attempt to point out that the 10%/90% jazz was just an “old chestnut” (as I called it) was balked. I even tried to explain the origin of the misconception, but he wasn’t interested in a history lesson either. Just the _facts_. :rolleyes: * * * [:eek: I-am-losing-the-will-to-live Department. :eek:] Finally just a few years back I was involved in what could be vaguely described as continuing education courses, and in the hallway a not-very-impressive guy informed me of this great truth. I explained how it was a misconception, and he seemed to be listening to me and also not kicking up a fuss. Which didn’t stop him from repeating it all over again when it seemed germane to the discussion in the classroom and class that we shared just then. He had the exact same kind of rather bland enthusiasm, without the slightest sign that he was being insistent, defiant, or snarky in the wake of my statement. In one ear… * * * Getting back to the GL comic, it seems to me that on this one planet GL encountered, folks were very similar to us Earth humans, what with the missing 90% brain power (originally) but had developed a high-tech way of getting to all 100% - and then they **did** possess telekinesis, IIRC. **exclamation!** , I wonder whether that could have possibly been the source of what your acquaintance said. Granted, the comic was a lonnnnng time ago, but maybe such gems are passed down a generation or two. Sort of a Bizarro Word version of heirlooms… Or not. Never mind. * * * Me ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/218 "2008-04-14T11:35:53Z")
That there is a tribe of Pygmies living in the UK in Devon. And Cliff Richard is their masthead. ---
**Author:** ![Red1980](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@Red1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red1980)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/219 "2008-04-14T12:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=Fourth Wall] I keep hearing that global warming really exists. [/QUOTE] Please watch this: [http://www.glumbert.com/media/global](http://www.glumbert.com/media/global) ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2008, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-urban-legend-have-you-heard-repeated-as-fact-the-most-times/444660/220 "2008-04-14T12:11:43Z")
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