I love urban myths.  I love the stories we tell one another to spread urbans myths.  I especially love the stories that parents tell their children to warn them about some evil in the world.

In my linguistics class, today, we were sitting around waiting for class to start.  Several of us get along quite well and have a good time talking to one another.  Our conversations move rather quickly from topic to topic.  Towards the end of our conversation, someone started telling us a story that her dad used to tell her when she was a kid:

We’d go swimming at Lake Powell when I was a kid.  We’d wander out into the lake by ourselves.  Finally, my dad was so tired of yelling at us to get out of the lake that he told us about the sea monsters that live in the lake.  He told us that there are whale-sized, man-eating fish at the bottom of Lake Powell.

She was dead serious.  She believed her Dad.  She still believes him and doesn’t like swimming in the lake too much.

While I didn’t believe the story, I figured I should do some research on it.  The largest fish ever caught at Lake Powell was 48 pounds (which is a big fish…but not whale size).  It was a Bass (bottom-feeder).

Another student said this:

My parents used to tell me that biting my fingernails would turn them green like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz and that they would then fall off.

And another:

I was told that if someone poked you in the belly button, your stomach would open up and all of your blood would pour out.  To this day, I don’t like anyone touching my belly button.

I think this is an interesting foray into the ways we affect one another.  Be careful what you say.  It may impact someone for the rest of his or her life.