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.

That Aled Jones sings in the snowman film in 1982, it was Peter Auty. but somehow his name was left of the credits. Aled Jones sung it from 1985 after Peter Autys voice had broken, so now everyone thinks it was Aled Jones in the film.

However, they do go off at some point, the increase in air is the start of that process. Obviously.

The increase in air starts from when they are laid. There's no specific change in the egg at the time when it starts to float. It's a very similar principle to the use by date on potatoes. It gives some indication of freshness but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a day before and a day after that arbitrary date. And the potatoes are likely still safe and equally good to eat for several weeks. Same with eggs.

Someone mentioned Elvis upthread...... That Elvis died because he was a disgusting glutton who ate too much. No, he had a hereditary heart condition, which his mother also died of at a similar age (early 40s). If modern ultrasound technology had been available back then, he would not have died at 42.

but then a simplistic statement like "carbs make you fat" invites an equally simplistic and erroneous response like "no they don't".

But it's not erroneous 😀

It's not carbs that make you fat, regardless of how it's elaborated. It's over-eating (in most cases). It's the action, not the content.

As you allude to by referencing fruit, carbs and the proliferation of them in our diet, allow someone to over-eat more easily, as fruit of protein-based products have other limiting factors.

That there's such a thing of right of way when driving.

@altiara if your going to do it that way, at least plan it in advance and let your neighbours know your planning on having a new patio laid. Looks dodgy if you do it out of the blue

@SnackSizeRaisin

However, they do go off at some point, the increase in air is the start of that process. Obviously.

The increase in air starts from when they are laid. There's no specific change in the egg at the time when it starts to float. It's a very similar principle to the use by date on potatoes. It gives some indication of freshness but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a day before and a day after that arbitrary date. And the potatoes are likely still safe and equally good to eat for several weeks. Same with eggs.

I didn't say they weren't.

Nonetheless, once an egg is floating, and therefore air has permeated to that extent, it's no longer fresh. What the consumer chooses to do with that information, is the same as any other consumer choice.

@mrsm43s I think @KarenTheGammonRemoaner is one of those people who thinks they can only influence their DCs behaviour when it comes to positive changes, and of course that they know better than the scientists how to do research but don't actually understand how to read a scientific article.

That you can catch a cold from not wearing a coat

That your maximum heartbeat can be calculated using 220 - your age.

@SuperSocks

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.

You don’t need hot water or dettol to ‘kill’ the bacteria on your pants, washing it away with detergent and water will do fine. Same way we can wash germs from our hands with soap and water.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I've encountered a few people who've been convinced that a bus is always more environmentally-friendly than a car, just by virtue of its being a bus.

Even if it's an old diesel double-decker with only one passenger (I exclude the driver, as s/he doesn't want/need to make the journey for their own benefit) versus a new electric compact 'city' car carrying four people to their required destination.

To be fair, if you're making a one-off decision to travel and choosing how to do it, then taking a bus which is already scheduled to travel, even a filthy one, will be a greener choice than making an additional journey in your nice clean car.

But taking a wider view you have a point - there are some rural areas where providing enough public transport that people will willingly give up their cars would be a ruinously costly decision in cash and CO2.

@Bananarama101

That your maximum heartbeat can be calculated using 220 - your age.

I have no idea how this works either.

@Skilovingmama

Muscle takes up less space than fat, because it is less dense. Therefore at the same weight, your composition based on fat or muscle will be very different

Yeah and that’s what people mean when they say it weighs more. Obviously. It’s just idiots who then pipe up and say ‘but a pound of x weighs the same as a pound of y’. No shit, Sherlock. I think most people do know that a pound is a unit of measurement. The point is that muscle is heavier per square centimetre.

Quite. By the 'a pound = a pound' nothing is heavier than anything else. A pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of lead. Does this mean lead in not heavier than feathers?

@BewareTheBeardedDragon

Read the thread. The difference was explained (it's due to density) by several posters. So not 'quite' at all.

I am genuinely baffled by the "muscle weighs the same as fat" pedants.

Someone says "I started lifting weights and I still weigh the same but wear a smaller dress size, because muscle weighs more than fat". There is a perfectly reasonable and true everyday interpretation of this, which is to take "weighs more than" as a synonym for "is denser than".

But instead the pedants are deciding that this everyday sentence doesn't have its everyday meaning and is instead must be taken as being literally meaningless and self-contradictory. Why??

I'll tell you one thing, they wouldn't last long in a commercial law courtroom.

@DickMabutt73962 when I had my First Aid training to be an ‘appointed person’ for first aid in the office, the trainer repeatedly told us that you need to make sure the ambulance bring a defib for someone with no pulse. He kept saying that a defibrillator was the best way to ‘restart’ a heart.

We then got a defibrillator for the office so I was sent on another training course to learn how to use it, and that’s where I learned that defibrillators actually DON’T restart a flatlining heart (I believe you need CPR and some kind of shot for that but I’m not a doctor) and that they are actually used for people having heart attacks. I was really shocked (no pun intended!) that films and TV had been getting it so universally wrong for my whole life!

I think Scrubs is the only show I’ve seen where a patient ‘flatlined’ and the doctors did what you’re actually supposed to do instead of grabbing the pads and shouting ‘clear!’

Many people seem to believe that "alot", "alright" and "bestfriend" are words. They're not. It's "a lot", "all right" and "best friend" (although "alright" is possibly becoming an accepted spelling).

It seems to be a commonly held myth that the royal family are not the descendants of tyrants, thieves , slave owners and murderers and have some kind of god given right to hold on to their ill gotten wealth.

@CharacterForming completely agree. Everyone knows what you mean when you say ‘muscle weighs more than fat’ i.e that a more muscular person with lower body fat weighs more than a person of a similar size with less muscle and more body fat. The pedantry on that one is just tedious.

@mrsm43s

That is true. I work part time and have a Monday off, my DH works part time and has a Tuesday off. We work at the same place with the exact same terms and conditions and I get more hours of annual leave than he does. Our 'base rate' of annual leave is the same, but I get a public holiday adjustment on top which is what makes the difference (because most public holidays are on a Monday).

@mistermagpie - but you both still get the same number of days off. On a week where there is a Monday bank holiday, he works one less day than you (assuming you work the same number of days). So you have hours for that day added to your leave, so that you can have the time off that he has already had at another time to equal you up - not to give you more. You will both work exactly the same number of hours over the year - but not working a Monday means that you get more choice in when you take a few of them (because they are added to your leave rather than taken on a set Bank Holiday day).

That may apply to your business, but not to do every one. I got a 12.5 days pro-ratered holidays plus only the bank holidays that fell on my working days. As there are more BH Mondays I would get more days off work than someone on same hours who didn’t work Mondays. Hence why all part timers at my company worked Mondays.

So, I think we can all agree that the 'part timers who work/don't work Mondays' thing is dependent on the country and employer and therefore isn't really one for this thread!

It seems to be a commonly held myth that the royal family are not the descendants of tyrants, thieves , slave owners and murderers and have some kind of god given right to hold on to their ill gotten wealth.

Oh here we go .......

@OfstedOffred

That the tax companies pay is based on their sales/revenue volumes

I don't get this one...corporate tax is a % of annual turnover (subject to some caveats that allow some online companies to tax dodge)

What am I missing?

@sweetbellyhigh - which documentary was that? I'd be really interested to see it.
Just to counter the point, one of the first thing the clinical psychologist leading the team who diagnosed my ds told him was that 'everyone is on the spectrum' is completely wrong.