grab bag vol. 7

Hello RSS and Email club people. It’s Friday so that means randomness. The universe has by chance presented to me a string a busted myths lately. Three myths have been broken, and I want to share. This improved understanding of the world is thanks to the indefatigable research and combined powers of a team of inquirists; I would not be smarter without the benefit of their efforts.

1. Watering plants during the day, particularly the leaves, will not burn them. There has been a lot of word play on the definition of the word “burn” for this one, but no, water will not cause a fire, and nor will it scorch the leaves. Water away, water with abandon, but wait, water is precious here in California and there are smarter ways to do it, so water with care.
2. All carbonated water is fake manufactured. I was profoundly disappointed to learn recently that my favorite beverage, fizzy water (aka sparkling), is a lie. I’m not sure where I acquired this fact, probably from the label on the bottle, but there is apparently very little natural water that is actually bubbly and bottled just is it comes out of the ground with the bubbles still in it and sent to us all over the world. Sometimes, not even the water is real. I still like do drink it though.¹
3. There is no convention for the symbolism of statue horse foot placement. I had asked “are there eras when the arrangement of the horse feet meant one thing but then changed to mean something else centuries later?” But it turns out there really isn’t a convention at all. I had not anchored much of my world view to this fact so it went out with a whatever and I’ll try (not very hard) to remember this so the next time it comes up in a decade or two I can do something about it. It may have even come up before and been knocked down a decade or more ago. I don’t remember, to be honest.

Some of these myths are harmless (carbonated water) or really harmless (horse statues? seriously?). Like Sherlock Holmes said, “Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it.” Now, knowing about watering your plants can have a practical impact. I wish parsing which facts where facts and which were bogus was easier. Our brains just don’t seem to distinguish well between them. They’re all just ideas it believes about the world to it. Beliefs are funny things.

For some reason² ghosts have come up a lot in the last week or so, which is not an ordinary amount of ghost talk for me. Some of the things I heard about ghosts: Ghosts can’t open doors. Ghosts can’t fit under doors if there is carpet. Rocks are accumulated ghosts. Hiding under blankets or making a protective circle with your arms will protect you from ghosts or other night beings. Ghosts and night beings exist at all. That last one is debatable depending on your context; night beings could easily encompass wild animals, and that seems like a likely explanation for the origin of the fear.

Have you got any favorite beliefs that turned out to be not true upon taking a closer look?

jg