things the masses of people seem to believe that aren't true.

[shortroundd]

I am not talking about conspiracies here that can't be proven with a bit of digging but more false stuff that seems to stick in the minds of the general population as truths.

1. All/majority of lotto winners go broke after 5 years. I have seen this touted out a lot yet there is no known source of it as no such research exists. There is the handful of bad stories that are circulated but this is only a minority out of 1000s of big winners worldwide. Infact, I recall the tabloids doing a feature with winners to celebrate Camelot's 20th anniversary or so and many winners had said their lives were better.

1. Marriage means all assets are split 50/50. Another huge misconception.

1. Prenups will protect 1 in divorce- again I think 2 and 3 come from people watching tv shows and movies that use this as factual when it's not.

1. Elvis sings 'Lonely this Christmas.'

1. The capital of Brazil is Rio.

@squashedalmondcroissant

That food handlers/workers should wear gloves because it's more hygienic. Wrong, it's actually the opposite!

That dogs are can't see colour (they can).

Dogs are red/green colour blind.

They can see blue, yellow, and shades of grey, not all colour.

That dogs understand the concept of guilt and look 'guilty' when they 'know' they did something wrong. It's been properly tested and no, they don't - the guilty look is an appeasement gesture designed to stop owners yelling/hitting/being mad, in a specific context, requiring conditioned stimuli.

ie - owner returning - turd on floor [where turd on floor has in the past resulted in angry owner] = 'cringe and do big eyes as angry owner about to occur'.

Of course the more this occurs, the more anxious the dog gets about the owner absence the more likely they are to defecate due to stress (or rip up carpets, chew stuff etc)... and on and on it goes.

@stuntbubbles

That things can be chemical-free.

This, with bells on! I've seen companies advertise chemical free make up. WTF!

@KitchenTowel

That tourists from non EU countries can use the NHS.

This was certainly true for my American dad. He had an emergency while visiting and spent eight days in hospital and follow-up treatment for a month. He kept asking for the bill but the NHS had no way to produce one. It’s not like he could sign up with a GP but A&E is not going to turn someone away who is in dire straits.

@EdithWeston

That Marilyn Monroe was a size 16, or a size between 12-16

(Her measurements were recorded post mortem as bust 35, waist 22, hips 35, and her film costumes are usually displatpyed on a modern size 2 mannequin)

Don’t forget that clothes were sized very differently years ago. My measurements were slightly smaller than the ones you quoted, 5’ 7” tall, weighing 7st 10lbs and I took size 12 (occasionally a 10) in the mid-60’s.

• Socialism and communism are the same thing.
• Everyone should always vote Tory because there is no viable alternative.
• If you went to Eton/Harrow etc you have a higher intellect, the right to rule and are better than anyone else.
• Men know better than women.
• Women need to be blond.
• You're only really a proper woman if you have very large breasts.

I agree, @Ireallycantthinkofagoodone - early 80s I was 33-23-33 and varied between a 10 and 12 because of size differences between manufacturers.

I am much bigger now, and yet apparently only a size 14-16. And I do mean MUCH bigger (13st as opposed to 8st - I haven't measured myself in a long while, I'm too scared!)

Vanity sizing has meant that I stayed a size 12-14 for a VERY long time, as the dress sizes grew with me!

@thebear1

That there is such a thing as common law wife or husband and this gives you rights.

In many countries this is indeed the case. I live in Australia and after two years of living in a "marriage like" relationship . " Marriage like" simply means that you share a residence and do all the normal things that married couples do together . Even if you've never talked about marriage or commitment, and have no intention of being married, after two years the law regards you as being in a de facto marriage . If you split up, or if one partner dies, the property is shared as if you had been married.

That's astonishing, really. If you asked people to name some countries where they thought forced marriage might be legal, I bet they'd all name developing countries known for poor human rights records - and none of them would ever dream of saying Aus or NZ.

Why are you talking about "forced marriage"? Surely that is when someone is forced to marry a person they don't want to marry, which is not what was being discussed.

Everyone is on the autism spectrum somewhere

NO. Only autistic people are on the autistic spectrum. That's why it's called the autistic spectrum 🙄 IMO this is one of the most damaging myths to the well-being of the autistic population and it needs to be debunked every time you hear it (please!).

Lots of people may have one or two autistic traits but you have to have a whole load of them to be diagnosed as autistic.

@savehannah Going wildly off topic, how do you kill the germs in reusable period pants? Mine say to wash cold, which makes sense as you don't want to be 'setting' the blood but then what's killing the bacteria? I would use dettol but you aren't supposed to use fabric softener and I'm afraid of ruining them.

@BigPantsLittlePants

Where's the line though? I've got tonnes of autistic traits so as if I wrote them down everyone would be nodding like, 'Oh yes, she's definitely autistic' whereas if I missed them out and wrote down the other side of me no one would think I was at all. When does it stop being 'autistic traits' and start being 'actually autism'?

Why are you talking about "forced marriage"? Surely that is when someone is forced to marry a person they don't want to marry, which is not what was being discussed.

The law treating you as married - and ordering the division of your assets on divorce or their dispersal on your death - on that basis? Even though you've chosen not to marry? Granted, it's not in the same league as having to marry somebody you don't even know/want a relationship with - but it's still effectively forcing you to be treated as married.

Why after two years? Why not three, or five, or ten, or twenty, or one, or three months? You have to have a specific point at which people are unequivocally regarded as wishing to be treated as marriage; and in any country that respects individuals' basic rights to their own relationship and financial choices, that specific point comes, of course, when/if they marry.

*regarded as wishing to be treated as marriage

treated as MARRIED

@Sorka

Common law marriage is legally recognised in England so you have the same rights if you split up as on divorce.

Total rubbish.

(Common-law marriages) are not legally recognised in any part of the U.K. and they are not a legal thing in ‘lots of places.’

Really weird thing to say if you actually read through the link you posted. Common-law relationships may not be called "marriages" everywhere, but they are absolutely recognised as marriage-like relationships and given different rights/responsibilities similar or the same as married couples re tax, child custody, splits of property etc in lots of places, including Canada, the USA, Australia and many other countries. There are pros and cons to this obviously but it's clear that the reason so many people on MN think they exist is because in many places, they do. Just not in the country that most of the users of this site are from.

Funnily enough, the reason I thought Scotland might be an exception and actually recognise common-law relationships is because...I've seen that said multiple times on MN. I've never bothered to look into it further though.

The law treating you as married - and ordering the division of your assets on divorce or their dispersal on your death - on that basis? Even though you've chosen not to marry? Granted, it's not in the same league as having to marry somebody you don't even know/want a relationship with - but it's still effectively forcing you to be treated as married.

Everyone knows the rules, so if they don't want to abide by them they don't have to live in a de facto relationship - simple as that. It has been this way for several years and seems to work. I find the UK attitude to marriage decidedly unromantic and cold.

@drspouse
Please can you explain what does happen to the body (in terms of adrenaline etc) when sugar is consumed?
I’m confused

De facto marriage is not forced marriage! That’s an insult to those who are forced to get married. If you don’t want the potential legal obligations (which largely protect women who have children by the way), don’t live together. Or enter into an agreement to opt out of the law if it’s that important (you can do this in almost all countries that have de facto marriage). Scotland allows financial claims by former cohabitants but doesn’t go the full hog and have common law marriage as Aus and NZ do (where cohabitation grants equal rights to marriage).

Also re social services and social workers, yes a court has to grant a care order but it is actually the local authority who applies for that order. So it is the local authority (of which social workers are a part) that takes children away with the sanction of the court.

@SuperSocks because psychiatrist and psychologists look at the whole person, not just the traits. They identify the traits, the impact the traits have on you and your life, your social skills etc. They apply that to the criteria required to take you across the threshold from NT to autistic, combine that with professional judgement plus discussion with another colleague - I've only been through my children being diagnosed but in both their cases, it was more than one mental health professional each time to reach a conclusion.

Obviously this is all the 'I've no idea but I assume it's along those lines' viewpoint of an unqualified health professional.

It's a bit like saying, everyone who feels sick every day, everyone who has put on a bit of weight - must be a bit pregnant. It's literally as ridiculous as that. A few symptoms do not make a diagnosis. A few traits do not make you autistic. It's insulting to autistic people to suggest everyone is 'on the spectrum' because that implies that autistic people are actually neurotypical. Which they aren't! It also implies all neurotypical people are autistic, which they aren't. It's really a ludicrous statement if you think about it.

Unfortunately autism impacts people in such different ways and to different extents, it has to be described as a spectrum. From that people have jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the spectrum goes in a straight line from 'completely normal/neurotypical to autistic' or from mildly autistic, to extremely autistic. It doesn't, it goes from autistic - with these particular dominant traits to autistic with different dominant autistic traits. And it's not really a line. A circle better describes it (I've attached a couple of pictures that I think explain it quite well) .

I hope that long waffly explanation helps!

I can see (or hear!) why people think Elvis sang ‘Lonely This Christmas’ as Ray Stiles emulates his style on that song. Elvis also had a hit with ‘Blue Christmas’ and I suppose people get the two mixed up.

Defibrillator debunking follows.

The heart may stop due to a number of underlying reasons. It may stop completely, with no electrical activity and no heart muscle movement, or it may go into an abnormal rhythm which makes the heart muscles ‘twitch’.
To treat this, you start chest compressions (to mimic the heart’s function of pumping blood to the brain so it isn’t starved of oxygen) and find and treat the underlying cause of the heart stopping in the first place. If the heart happens to be in a twitching rhythm, you can use electricity to reset the rhythm - I.e. the defibrillator, whilst still doing chest compressions and still looking to treat the underlying cause. If the heart has stopped completely and there’s no twitchy rhythm, defibrillator won’t do anything. So you do chest compressions and find and treat the underlying cause.

The only difference between an automated definition (AED) and a manual one is that the automatic one does all the interpreting of the rhythm for you, and tells you when you can shock and when you can’t. With a manual one, you look at the rhythm yourself and decide whether to shock or not. That’s it. They both do the same thing and work the same way. In fact, many hospital wards now have AEDs rather than manual ones.

Hope that helps. Some of the incorrect statements here were as painful for me to read as watching medical dramas use defibs on everyone 😂

@CounsellorTroi

Jean Charles de Menezes was challenged by police and ran away. He was not, and he did not.

Who?

Blows my mind at the notion some of these things are known never mind "widely believed" 😆

That it's spitting image.

It's not, it's spit and image.

@pussycatunpickingcrossesagain

That boris is a decent, honest human being.

No one believes that, surely?

@BigPantsLittlePants great explanation 😊