Can you name any cultural myths which are often portrayed by writers as fact?

StuToYou · Oct 11, 2016

The recurring myth of Americans working two jobs to make ends meet is so prevalent that I finally thought I'd check into the stats.

Turns out it's only 5% of the working population, and the highest rates are among the most educated and higher earning group, and in states with higher employment rates. ie, they work to gain extra money, not so much to make ends meet.

Below is one link, but the 7 I looked at , incl govt reports, say essentially the same thing.

http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/01/17/states-where-the-most-people-work-two-jobs/

Can you think of any other ones?

grandma2isaac · Oct 11, 2016

I guess that to me, when I hear this I think 2 income families, or parents of children not living with them who have to pay for their, er, absence. I worked 2 jobs for many years (it has been FOREVER ago) but we are a 2 job (or income) family. Maybe a different portion of Americans would post it differently?

veinglory · Oct 11, 2016

There are lot of brain and psych myths alive and well in fiction: sudden recovery from coma, complete and suddenly reversible amnesia, using 10% of your brain, brains creating strong electromagnetic fields, the Macdonald triad, etc.

Roxxsmom · Oct 11, 2016

You only use 10%of your brain is a big one.

Evolution=an innately driven and inevitable progression to greater intelligence and complexity and humans have an evolutionary destiny.

Creative people are right brained, and analytical people are left brained.

Petroleum is decomposed dinosaurs.

lizmonster · Oct 11, 2016

Knocking someone out is easy, and rarely results in serious injury.

Cobalt Jade · Oct 11, 2016

You must drink eight glasses of water a day.

Dennis E. Taylor · Oct 11, 2016

Chloroform to knock someone out quickly.

jjdebenedictis · Oct 11, 2016

People splash desperately and verbalize their distress when they're drowning. (If they're on the brink of going under, they don't have the energy or the air left to do that. They go under pretty silently.)

Roxxsmom · Oct 11, 2016

Oh, and hitting someone over the head to knock them unconscious for several hours, and they wake up in a cell with nothing worse than a bad headache.

Oops, Lizmonster beat me to that one.

Sharks have to keep swimming or die.

Dogs are completely colorblind (they're more red-green colorblind).

Women talk more than men (I ran across a female character telling a male character this in a novel, and it made me cranky).

Albedo · Oct 12, 2016

It might be more a visual medium thing, but depictions of cardiac arrest and CPR in movies are almost never remotely accurate.

DancingMaenid · Oct 12, 2016

People being knocked out for hours and then feeling normal when they wake up is a huge pet peeve of mine, and it's something I always notice and have a hard time forgiving even though it's such a common trope.

Friendly Frog · Oct 12, 2016

People getting close to complete organ failure and recovering 100% within days or even hours without any lasting effect. Sci-fi is especially bad at this.

Tranq darts that can incapacitate animals and humans alike within seconds without any medical risk.

Maryn · Oct 12, 2016

Really brilliant people being unable to process social cues, unable to make small talk, wearing big glasses, clueless on dressing and grooming fashionably, etc. has long been a pet peeve of mine. I'm not a brilliant person (which you probably guessed), but I've known some and it's not that they cannot do these things--many can and do. But others don't see the value in it and choose not to expend the time or effort.

In a similar vein, a woman who's unattractive, then removes a single hairpin, letting her hair fall in a most attractive way, and takes off her glasses, and suddenly she's gorgeous.

Lavern08 · Oct 12, 2016

The one that drives me absolutely cray-cray is: Women who (after having had sex), get out of bed, and get dressed without washing up or taking a shower.

I can almost see this happening, if the woman is going straight home, but the usual scenario is that she's a doctor, cop, spy, attorney or detective, and she goes to to work.

Ummm, NO!

What woman is going out in public and around her colleagues smelling of sex?

Maryn · Oct 12, 2016

Shoot, I've been living my sex life all wrong! (snicker)

jjdebenedictis · Oct 12, 2016

Oh! Since we're on the topic of sex...

That a woman's hymen is located a few inches inside her. It's not; it's part of the outer genitalia and can be seen by moving the labia out of the way.

jjdebenedictis · Oct 12, 2016

Maryn said:
In a similar vein, a woman who's unattractive, then removes a single hairpin, letting her hair fall in a most attractive way, and takes off her glasses, and suddenly she's gorgeous.

That one bugs me too, because (in television and film, at least) it's always pretty obvious the woman is beautiful. Plenty of guys would have noticed her even with the bun and glasses; the sexy-librarian look is not an unknown phenomenon.

Maryn · Oct 12, 2016

Ooh, I got another one. In many private detective or action books with a female protagonist, she stays totally fit and in peak fighting form by jogging three miles a couple times a week, stopping for coffee, pastry, and the paper on her way home. That's not going to allow a woman to hold her own against the bad guys with 50 pounds of muscle and several inches more reach than she has.

Maryn, who'd be kicking ass if it did

Lauram6123 · Oct 12, 2016

On film and in TV, just about everyone who gets shot or stabbed in the stomach coughs up blood. It can happen, but it's not as common as people think it is.

Brightdreamer · Oct 12, 2016

Maryn said:
In a similar vein, a woman who's unattractive, then removes a single hairpin, letting her hair fall in a most attractive way, and takes off her glasses, and suddenly she's gorgeous.

Spinning off this: the idea that glasses are merely accessories that can be removed (or conveniently replaced by contacts) the moment a character wants to look hot. (It's not just a movie thing - I've seen it in books, too, especially romances.) For some few people, that may be true, but not everyone can do contacts, and many of us would be legally blind without our lenses... kinda kills the seduction scene when the lady starts sweet-talking the potted plant instead of the guy.

Roxxsmom · Oct 12, 2016

Gravely ill or injured people who are fully conscious and able to talk coherently, but die (not just fall unconscious, but die) suddenly, mid-sentence as they're delivering a plot-relevant message. I suppose it's possible for them to have a sudden stroke or cardiac arrest, but most moribund people are comatose for some time before they finally die.

Chase · Oct 12, 2016

The myth: Any pistol, rifle, or shotgun blast picking a person off his or her feet and throwing the body backward.

The fact: Killed bodies crumple.

CindyGirl · Oct 12, 2016

Someone who's never ridden a horse before able to gallop a horse down a winding, twisting path in a thunderstorm
The day after giving birth, a woman zipping her size two jeans and going about her business
Someone who has never fired a gun of any sort able to hit their target dead on

kuwisdelu · Oct 12, 2016

Lavern08 said:
The one that drives me absolutely cray-cray is: Women who (after having had sex), get out of bed, and get dressed without washing up or taking a shower.

I can almost see this happening, if the woman is going straight home, but the usual scenario is that she's a doctor, cop, spy, attorney or detective, and she goes to to work.

Ummm, NO!

What woman is going out in public and around her colleagues smelling of sex?

What did you think I used all that tea rose oil for?

kuwisdelu · Oct 12, 2016

Brightdreamer said:
Spinning off this: the idea that glasses are merely accessories that can be removed (or conveniently replaced by contacts) the moment a character wants to look hot. (It's not just a movie thing - I've seen it in books, too, especially romances.) For some few people, that may be true, but not everyone can do contacts, and many of us would be legally blind without our lenses... kinda kills the seduction scene when the lady starts sweet-talking the potted plant instead of the guy.

Plus some of us get cuter with glasses.

Hollywood is weird.

Can you name any cultural myths which are often portrayed by writers as fact?

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