There are a lot of fake facts floating around. It’s easier than ever to spread lies to a large audience through phony posts and claims that go viral. Some misuse this power by sharing false “facts” and baseless claims that spread rapidly online. While this is concerning in areas like politics and social issues, let’s focus on some wacky misconceptions instead!
In this list, we’ll explore ten common misconceptions. These aren’t critical life-or-death falsehoods but rather funny, quirky, or just plain weird. Get ready to have some common “facts” corrected!
Related: Top 10 Myths You Still Believe About Your Favorite Treats
10 What Is the “AR” in AR-15?
The AR-15 was developed in the late 1950s as a scaled-down version of the AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, invented earlier that decade by the ArmaLite company. The hope was to convince the American military to switch to ArmaLite products but they were rejected in favor of the M14 carbine rifle.
ArmaLite then sold its patent and trademarks for both the AR-10 and AR-15 rifle models to the Colt Manufacturing Company. Colt removed the selective fire features on the AR-15 and by 1977, other companies began making their own semi-automatic rifles when the patents expired.
Colt retained the trademarks to “AR-15,” and to this day, they are the only manufacturer who can label their arms as such. So, while “AR-15” has become a catch-all phrase for powerful semi-automatic rifles, not all of them are technically AR-15 models.
The misconception? The “AR” in AR-15 does not stand for either “assault rifle” or “automatic rifle.” The “AR” stands for “ArmaLite Rifle,” as designated when the company first developed the guns in the 1950s.
The confusion likely arose from the weapon’s inclusion in the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, leading people to associate it with “assault” on life.[1]
9 Nova? No Problem!
The Chevy Nova was a popular small car manufactured by Chevrolet through the 1960s and 1970s, and again in the late 1980s. It was a popular model in many parts of the world, including Mexico and Latin America. The myth? The car’s name, Nova, was hampering sales in Spanish-speaking countries because “no va” means “doesn’t go” in Spanish.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the Nova actually sold very well in both Mexico and Latin America. Locals wanted a small, reliable car for crowded towns and narrow city streets. The Chevy Nova fit the bill perfectly, proving the “doesn’t go” concern untrue!
In terms of market saturation, the Nova actually did better in Mexico and some Latin American countries than it did in the United States and other non-Spanish-speaking nations! The Spanish word “nova” is distinct from “no va,” referencing an astronomical event. Also, “Nova” was the name of a popular gasoline brand in Mexico.
If consumers were going to be tripped up by the “no va” confusion, they would have already balked at buying that gasoline. [2]
8 Nuclear Twinkies
We’ve all heard the claim that Twinkies can survive a nuclear holocaust. But a nuclear winter would be devastating, so don’t take any Twinkie claims literally.
Twinkies are singled out with this phony myth because they seem to be made of more preservatives and lab-created ingredients than real food. They’re an easy target for nuclear hate, especially in a post-Cold War world.
Officially, Twinkies have a shelf life of about 45 days. Stores are under strict orders to only stock Twinkies for between 7 and 10 days before replacing them. They are made with sorbic acid as their only preservative, so they don’t last forever.
The common claim that they remain edible for decades is false. And the myth that they will supposedly survive a nuclear explosion is extremely false. [3]
7 Don’t Blame the Turkey!
You eat a bunch of turkey as part of Thanksgiving dinner, and then you doze off. The supposed culprit? The tryptophan in the turkey.
Turkey has tryptophan and serotonin, which help you relax. But the amount in turkey shouldn’t be blamed for your drowsiness. There is more tryptophan in chicken than in turkey! The Thanksgiving bird provides anywhere from 250 to about 310 milligrams of the amino acid tryptophan in a 3-ounce serving, while chicken rates higher than that. But we don’t blame chicken for making us fall asleep, do we?
Other foods like fish, nuts, and beans also contain tryptophan but aren’t blamed for making us sleepy. So, it’s not the tryptophan in the food at Thanksgiving but the amount of food you consume. If you are like most of us, you go overboard.
After eating such a large quantity, your body shuts itself down to digest. It has nothing to do with the turkey itself! [4]
6 Peanut Butter Problems
George Washington Carver was known for solving problems related to agricultural production, crop rotation, and farming. However, he did not invent peanut butter.
The myth persists that he was the first to mash peanuts into a paste. In reality, peanut butter was used by the Incas and the Aztecs for centuries before Carver was born. European explorers documented both Incan and Aztec people making a peanut paste.
The first peanut butter-related patent wasn’t filed by Carver, either! It was filed by John Harvey Kellogg in 1895. So, if anyone is to be credited with “inventing” peanut butter (besides the Incas and the Aztecs), that honor should go to Kellogg.
Carver compiled a list of hundreds of uses for peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes, pecans, and more. He was a pioneer in developing theories about crop rotation. [5]
5 Animation Advances
Everybody knows that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated feature film released. When it was released in 1937, it took the moviegoing public by storm and set off a wave of animation. Right?
While Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs may have been the first animated feature-length film released in the United States to a mass audience, it’s not the first animated feature ever made. That pioneering distinction belongs to a movie called El Apóstol.
Made in Argentina and released there in 1917—20 years before Walt Disney’s crew dropped Snow White—El Apóstol was a silent film that pioneered the use of cutout animation. There are a couple reasons it doesn’t get credit for actually being the first animated flick.
The cutout animation it chose to use differed from Disney’s celluloid animation. Plus, El Apóstol was only shown in a limited number of theaters around Buenos Aires and then mostly forgotten. It didn’t have the reach that Disney did. Unfortunately, El Apóstol no longer exists. One or two later short films of Cristiani’s still survive. But El Apóstol is presumably gone forever. [6]
4 Snow, Snow, Snow…
As one persistent myth goes, there are many Eskimo words for “snow” and its variants. Eskimo peoples are said to have more words for snow than any other language, describing in great detail the various specific characteristics of one snowfall relative to another.
But that’s completely false. A German anthropologist and linguist named Franz Boas realized that the Eskimos had a lot of synonyms for snow and related weather phenomena, but he was clear in noting that these weren’t unique words. He noted other languages, like English, have a lot of words for snow, too.
The Inuit and Yupik language groups add suffixes to words in a way somewhat similar to German or Hawaiian. The Inuit and Yupik languages can make nearly any number of “new” words by combining suffixes and attaching them to a root word.
Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum eventually got fed up with it and in 1989 he published a paper titled “The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.” In it, he tried to correct the record and said that the Yupik and Inuit group languages only really have four words for snow: “aput” (for snow on the ground), “qana” (for falling snow), “piqsirpoq” (for drifting snow), and “qimuqsuq” (for a snow drift). [7]
3 All Day, I Dream about… Myths?
When Adidas was founded in 1949, the company was named after its founder, Adolf “Adi” Dassler. Dassler combined the three letters of his nickname “Adi” with the first three letters of his last name.
As Adidas tapped into markets, people started asking, “What does Adidas stand for, anyway?” Jokes started popping up that it stood for “All Day I Dream about Soccer” or “All Day I Dream about Sports.” There was even an adult-themed acronym thrown into the mix: “All Day I Dream about Sex.”
The company had a little fun with the first two and low-key promoted those phony “backronyms” as possible name sources throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s. Adi Dassler simply thought it would be fun and meaningful to name his company after himself.
When he died in 1978, he had watched his company become a global brand. He just had no idea that people would muck up the moniker choice by coming up with incorrect acronyms! [8]
2 It’s Gringo to Me!
There are many theories about how the word “gringo” originated in Mexico. Some people trace it back to a corruption of the lyrics of the Irish folk song “Green Grow the Lilacs” or the English folk song “Green Grow the Rushes, O.” However, all those theories are wrong.
Historians and linguists believe the word “gringo,” meaning foreigner or outsider, comes from a corruption of the Spanish word “girego.” That word means “Greek,” its use was part of an idiom in Spanish-speaking cultures similar to “it’s Greek to me” in English.
In the 19th century, Spanish speakers had a very similar idiom where undecipherable things were considered to be “griego” to them. Along the way, “griego” came to be pronounced more typically as “gringo.” Then, by the late 1840s, “gringo” was the term that became common parlance for a foreigner.
The first documentation of that word came from John Audobon himself. Writing in his Western Journal of 1849-1850, Audubon reported how he and his party were shouted at for being “gringoes.” [9]
1 Glum over Gum
On January 3, 1992, Singapore banned the import, manufacture, and sale of chewing gum. They had long been sick of gum getting stuck on subway doors and other public places.
Singaporean officials wanted a clean and tidy society, and chewing gum was getting in the way. The chewing gum ban encompassed all substances produced from the “gum base of vegetable or synthetic origin,” including “bubble gum or dental chewing gum.”
A common misconception is that chewing gum in Singapore nowadays is punishable by caning. While it is true that corporal punishment is still used in Singapore for a variety of offenses, the act of chewing illegal gum is not one of them. Should you be caught chewing gum in public in Singapore today, you will be fined.
The ban seeks to crack down on the manufacture and mass sale of the stuff instead of personal consumption. You won’t be beaten or caned in Singapore if you mindlessly pop a stick of Doublemint in your mouth. [10]
Which of these myths surprised you the most? Leave your comment below!
