posted
Well, I know that at least two of those (the duck quack and sneezing ones) were disproved on "MythBusters".
The one about the playing cards is also not true. Sometimes, names have been assigned to the kings, but they were never originally meant to represent anybody in particular.
The one about the horse statues is patently false.
The one about the etymology of "cemetery" is true, but misleading. Presumably, they expect people to find it unusual because they think of a dormitory as a place where someone lives. Except, the "dorm" part of "dormitory" means "sleep". A dormitory is a place for sleeping. Which is also what "cemetery"'s Greek root means. (After all, even today, we call a grave a "final resting place".)
The one about the word "kangaroo" is complete bollocks, too.
The proposed origin of "OK" is one of many improbable etymologies.
I didn't check up on any of the others (except : it's easy to verify that 111 111 1112 is what they say it is), but I wouldn't be too quick to believe any of them.
[ February 29, 2008, 11:28 PM: Message edited by: TSN ]
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
To go into more detail, a duck's quack seems not to echo, because the echo is difficult to distinguish from the quack itself, but it can be differentiated using computer analysis of recorded sound.
There are tons of lists like these all over the Internet; most of what they say are totally made up or else urban legends.
Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
posted
I think about the only one that would lend itself to testing is the cockroach one. And, since they recently irradiated a bunch of cockroaches to death, I doubt they're going to want to start chopping their heads off, lest they be seen as serial insect murderers.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
