Such as “money can’t buy happiness” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Generally a false adage or something like that. All I could think of was “fallacious bumper sticker” which just sounds stupid.
‘An old wives tale’
What's a word that means a common saying which is arguably untrue?
Submitted 10 months ago by Lafari@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
Bahalex@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Twinklebreeze@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Not all wives tales are false. Most are, but not all.
amio@kbin.social 10 months ago
"Fallacy" works. These are also adages, clichés, platitudes and folk wisdom, but neither really means "falsehood" per se. However, many of them just rationalize whatever: the money one is factually incorrect and exemplifies "sour grapes", silver linings is not a bad idea but also not necessarily true, any number of things will not kill you but make you wish they had, etc.
lemmefixdat4u@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Whoever came up with the “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” adage never met a person with locked-in syndrome. That’s where you’re totally paralyzed but also totally conscious. There have been patients where the doctors thought they were in a persistent coma, but they were actually going crazy trapped in their own skulls.
diegantobass@lemmy.world 10 months ago
A proverb.
Because your examples are actual proverbs, that might be considered true or not, depending on who says it when.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I dunno. Something being a proverb doesn’t make it inherently false, which is what we’re trying to define I guess
Klear@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
The examples OP provided are not inherently false because they are proverbs.
Spendrill@lemm.ee 10 months ago
A Canard (French for duck) refers to something often believed to be true but isn’t.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
The origin of this expression is because the French do not believe that Quebec is real.
littlebluespark@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Tabernac.
scarabic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“Canard.”
noun 1. an unfounded rumor or story. “the old canard that LA is a cultural wasteland”
HeathenPope@lemmy.world 10 months ago
These fall under the category of “Half-baked Idea”. This includew any idea that obviously hasn’t been thought all the way through. Half-baked ideas can range from the absurd (e.g. “The Earth is flat.”), to the benignly optimistic (e.g. “Everything works out for the best.”)
littlebluespark@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“Decimate” =/= “devastate”, but common misuse becomes common use, so here we are. 🤦♂️
SuiXi3D@kbin.social 10 months ago
Language is fun like that. Kinda like how ‘literally’ can, and often does, mean ‘figuratively’, which has the opposite meaning.
Tranus@programming.dev 10 months ago
It annoys me that people keep saying “figuratively” is what they mean instead of “literally”. “Figuratively” may be the opposite, and technically correct, but the use of the word “literally” in this way is to strengthen a statement. A more appropriate correction would be “actually” or “seriously”, which holds the intended meaning. “Figuratively” is the last thing it should be replaced with.
voidMainVoid@lemmy.world 10 months ago
The meaning of a word doesn’t change just because you use it incorrectly.
scarabic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yep decimate is commuted that our lovely descriptivist dictionaries are now incorporating the incorrect use as correct. It’s too bad, too, because the word had a very specific meaning which is now lost. The language is less useful for changes like this.
Lafari@lemmy.world 10 months ago
For example someone says “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and you might say “that’s a questionable phrase.” or “I doubt the validity of that platitude”.
Garbanzo@lemmy.world 10 months ago
If you’re not trying to be polite, “That’s bullshit” works perfectly.
Deestan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“Myth” is a word I’d end that sentence with.
littlebluespark@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“Canard” is the term, as another commented. 🤙🏼
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Misconception?
Tinfoiledhat@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Colbert’s “truthiness” comes to mind
scarabic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Myth
Mango@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Adage
qarbone@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Because an adage isn’t necessarily untrue, like the OP is asking.
Mango@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Arguably, not necessarily. Adages are not truisms.
Steve@communick.news 10 months ago
I like Fallacious Bumper Sticker! I’m absolutely using that going forward.
CADmonkey@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I dunno, I kinda like Pithy Folk Ignorance.
9point6@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Common nonsense
XiELEd@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’ll call it that way.
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Bullshitism.
The_Mike_Drop@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Bollocks.
OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Idiom.
Knitwear@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Platitude
ish
Siegfried@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Baloney
In the actual deep south we say “fruta”, “frula”, “saraza”
Identity3000@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Maybe a “specious claim” or “folk wisdom” or “empty rhetoric”?
The word I would normally gravitate to is a “truism”, however that’s not really used to describe something that is necessarily false… just something that sounds insightful, but doesn’t have any meaningful depth (e.g. “every cloud has a silver lining”).
Lophostemon@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Bollocks.
pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thought-terminating cliche
Kittenstix@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Wait like the concept of thought terminating clichés or things like “God is mysterious and we don’t know His thoughts”?
beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
Debatable
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Id go with this one, because the examples given could also be argued to be true
mateomaui@reddthat.com 10 months ago
false premise?
Landmammals@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Misnomer
ConnieoH@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Bullshit
Nemo@midwest.social 10 months ago
Others have said “canard” which is almost certainly the best term; and “old wives’ tale” which is the same but for an anecdote or advice rather than pithy saying.
I think “aphorism” also fits the bill for a proverb if dubious legitimacy.
manderson1701@infosec.pub 10 months ago
Truism
Bonehead@kbin.social 10 months ago
"Blood is thicker than water."
Usually said to convince someone that you should be there to help family regardless of what that family did to you. Unfortunately the full saying is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb", meaning the ties you form with friends can be stronger than the family you you born into.
zipkag@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is probably not true. The concept of this phrase but referring to family is probably a modern confusion. There is no clear evidence it means it was really referencing ties to friends. Although I wish it did. Here’s some further reading from others also looking for a clearer reference.
…stackexchange.com/…/is-the-alleged-original-mean…
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 10 months ago
twice_twotimes@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
One of the biggest cliche revisionist histories I know of is “Jack of all trades, master of none; often much better than master of one.” It’s an interesting one because it’s been retconned twice.
You’ll hear people respond to first line by saying “um actually the second line of the poem totally changes the meaning.” Yes, it did change the meaning when it was added in the 21st century, 400-500 years later.
Then you’ll hear people one step closer to accuracy who correct “Jack of all trades” by reminding the speaker that it’s not a compliment because it ends with “master of none.” Except the master of none bit wasn’t used until the 18th century, and the second revision with the couplet may actually closer in meaning to the original!
The original, simple phrase “jack of all trades” was first used in that form in the 16th century, possibly as a reference to Shakespeare, and definitely as a phrase that was intentionally ambiguous about whether it should be interpreted as a compliment or insult.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades?wprov=sf…
littlebluespark@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Most of those old sayings have had the rejoinder omitted, and thereby completely losing their original meaning, in fact. For example, “Great minds think alike” originally closed with “but rarely do they differ”, etc.