To get so irritated when people pretend things happened to them that clearly didn't?

[CalamityKate]

I was watching This Morning earlier and they had an email from a woman who trotted out the whole "Dug Up Rabbit" story. Of course Colleen and Ruth and Eammon had a right old laugh about it.

Which is lovely, but it didn't happen. It's an urban myth that's been repeated and repeated and repeated - often by celebrities on chat shows.

Snopes

It REALLY irritates me when people do this. Why lie? What on earth is the point of emailing a programme, pretending that something happened to you when it didn't?

I've seen it on forums too - people tell a story that is either clearly a lie (as in the Snopes example) or it just doesn't ring true and you just KNOW it's either completely made up or VERY heavily embellished.

I was actually tempted to email This Morning

'My friend's friend named her kid La-a.
The dash is not silent.'

Heard that one off many a thread swearing it is true!

I have a friend who tells urban myth type stories all the time, including the one about taking off wallpaper in a child's bedroom when the child has claimed there are monsters in the room, to find that written on the wall under the wallpaper, 'there are monsters in this room.'

The problem is that he is such a good and frequent liar, that I never know on some of the more convincing and plausible stories if he is making them up or not. Then I feel like an idiot. He has told me various times about how he was trapped in the house of an Italian count and couldn't escape because of all the dogs. I know that sounds ludicrous, but he makes it sound convincing.

everyone that poor La-a meets will remember her name and tell others

I really met a man whose first name (on birth cert) was John-John

And I bet that somewhere out there there are people with names like

Drew Peacock
Annette Curtain
Jenny Taylor

etc but I've not met them

But the moving the room on to the first floor happened at my uni! Only it was all his friends who jumped out the window, not the victim...

toddlerama - that's a variation on when Helen and Rupert sleep together for the first time in Riders and she's used hairspray instead of deodorant...

Where do urban myths start? Is there ever any truth in them?

In Riders Helen has some strange 80s "vaginal deodorant" stuff.

one whole side of my family is like this. two of my uncles claim to have been involved in the same unlikely scenario, in completely different years and places.
My dad is particularly bad for it, and it's sad really because he's done some amazing things in his life (which I've had confirmed) but I always doubt what he's telling me.

QueenRollo is your dad the main character from 'Big Fish'?

On night-shift in Hospital, many moons ago, a colleague regaled me with a story that had 'happened to her and her friends' - photo taken on holiday of the group of woman mooning, when the photos were developed (that long ago!) a tampon string could be seen dangling...oh how I laughed, except I didn't because I had recently read the story in one of the 'Take a Break' type magazines that lay for years around the ward.

I didn't let on.

Tell your DB he's wrong unless his friend's parents are also friends of my in-laws because I am telling you it was a friend of theirs who met Eddie Murphy in the lift!

(Am that I repeated that hilarious story quite a few times before finding out it was a UM!)

Actually Vivian that does happen,
when I was a teen I worked in a salon in the next town, I didnt usually finish until 8-9pm, and got the bus home, the bus stop was a 10 minute walk up the road from my house, but the bus drove past my house first.
For about three years every time I got the bus the driver would drop me off outside my house as it was 'on the way'. :)

Kayano i'd forgotten about that film it's a fairly good comparison actually. My dad has travelled a lot (i only met him in my early 30's), has been road crew for some pretty big bands (this is true) and so you see some of his fantastic tales really could be true. But lots of things he's told me are obviously fantasy. I immediately glaze over when anyone starts regaling me with tales where the name 'Kray' turns up and this is a regular feature of his ramblings.
he's fried his synapses with too much nose candy

yeah, one of the girls at school lived on the bus route, and the driver often stopped outside her house instead of the busstop.

and in villages, it happens all the time!
I remember going to my friend's house, and I didn't know where the stop was - my friend's mum stood outside their house and waved the bus down for me to get off.

HoleyGhost, at one point DH taught not one, but two Jenna Taylors, at the same school!

I've heard the sleb in a lift one as Ray Charles saying "Get down, Lady", but it was to his guide dog. Obviously, it plays on racist stereotypes of black men as gangsters, then the storyteller is suitably shamed by said sleb sending them flowers and thanking them for the best laugh they've had in years etc.

On the whole though, I think it's harmless: it's natural when you are hazy about who told you a story to say that it happened to a friend of a friend, or an "aunt". The point is that you want to tell the funny anecdote, not waste time providing authentication for it. And often you are passing something on: my mum has told me the Robin Hood wedding march one as though it happened to a friend of hers; when I repeated it, I obviously swore blind it happened to someone I knew. I've repeated a few similar things in good faith.

I agree that telling funny stories is just a way of spreading a joke, most of the time, and done in a spirit of altruism rather than deception. The only time I would find it annoying is when somebody is clearly embellishing/completely inventing things for attention or sympathy. To make you laugh? I think it's perfectly normal.

I had to laugh recently when a poster here was rounded on for 'stealing' somebody's funny story: a blog was linked to which actually admitted nicking it. From mumsnet. From the same poster

every unusual baby name thread on here, somebody will trot out the 'forrin couple naming their baby Female' pronounced fe-mah-lay, after seeing it on the identity band.

Not an UM but an 'embellishment' of the truth - my dsis and her dc and mum went on a cruise last xmas, my sis told the story that the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, they all jumped up, panicking and racing around, bumping into each other, grabbing lifejackets, ran up to muster stations, the ship was smoking and actually on fire and sinking in the miidle of the Caribbean .....

Mum says the alarm went, they went to muster stations,and then went back to bed. It was an engine problem(possibly a bit of smoke). They were at sea for a day then it was fixed.

Not so exciting tho.

Back in the 90s I heard the 'Victoria and David Beckham gave someone a cheque for 100 grand to give up a suite at the Dorchester on their wedding night' from 3 seperate people. All swearing blind that it really had happened to a friend of a friend. My bloody sil told me this 2 weeks ago and said it happened to her friends sister. The variation was a kids birthday party clashing with her wedding at a theme park. She was indignant when I sent her about 20 different versions of that story in an email but I was getting sick of her bloody tall tales. Will Smith scaring passengers in a lift... An asian fella dropping his wallet and telling the nice person who gave it back to avoid NYC on 9/11... she's a blimmin' secondary school teacher too. I hope she doesn't tell her pupils this shite. :o

I've heard the Eddie Murphy one! And I believed it.

Will demand evidence for all anecdotes from this day forth!

every unusual baby name thread on here, somebody will trot out the 'forrin couple naming their baby Female' pronounced fe-mah-lay, after seeing it on the identity band. My sil again! I can't believe this. :o
Her husbands dad was playing on the street with his friend when he was 7. A pretty blonde lady called him over and asked if he wanted to go to the fair when his friend went home. He said yes. When his friend went home he went to go to the lady who he could see waiting. His mum called him and said they had to go and visit his Gran urgently. Years later he saw the 'pretty blonde lady' on telly with Ian Brady. I should point out that when she told me that story it also ''happened'' to my uncle. Everyone in Manchester had some connection to the Moors Murders somehow.

My DMum got told the one about the hitchhiking granny with the knife by her friend. She swore blind it happened at the traffic lights in Woodhall Spa.

Nothing ever happens in Woodhall Spa. Ever.

And the poisonous dog treats from China that was on here and FB last week is in Snopes, just seen it.

I don't know where I've been living but no-one has ever told me these stories!