the old wise tale
Old wives tale. There’s nothing wise about it…
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Explain Like I'm Five
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Boneappletea
Eggcorn
Yes! Eggcorns is by far the superior term for “alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements, creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used in the same context.”
Boneappletea is also an excellent term for a similar thing, where the "new" word or phrase makes no sense and is not plausible when used in the same context.
There will certainly be reasonable disagreements about which description is more apt in a given situation. One that comes to mind is Joey Tribbiani's use and explanation of "a moo point."
Yeah, I’m just partial to eggcorn (term and concept).
What's the origin of the term eggcorn? A brief scan of the link didn't answer this for me. Is eggcorn itself an eggcorn?
It is!
What is it an eggcorn of? Acorn? And what's the origin?
Yes, acorn.
This linguistics blog post is the origin: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000018.html
Oh awesome and very interesting thank you!
Wives'
When I was growing up you'd hear stories about how the local Chinese immigrants would eat neighborhood cats when they caught them.
But our "Chinese" neighbours were actually Portuguese, and vegetarian.
Racists are going to be racist, regardless of reality
Chinese immigrants
I used to work at a Chinese restaurant an the number of people who came in there blithely asking me if we "really" cooked and served cats was astounding.
I got tired of answering the question so often that towards the end I gave up and my standard response was, "No, we only cook and serve idiots who go around saying we cook cats."
I think the very low percentage of lost business was worth it. And this only because my boss told me that this kind of thing did not meet the criteria wherein I was allowed to roundhouse kick patrons in the teeth. If you're going to be a dumbass, at least try to be original.
Should have just put up a sign for cat soup and silently point at it for anyone who still ask.
Because racism is learned. It's the same tired tropes they heard from their parents. Today's racists are racist against Central American and Caribbean immigrants. Twenty years ago it was the Middle East. In the 1970s it was southeast Asians. Before that were... everybody else. This is America. There's always some new cultural group to demonize.
I remember a comedian who once described it like you did saying America is just one big game of tag your it.
That's a clever and funny way of putting it. It's just one stupid moral panic after the other, and racism is frequently featured.
Dehumanising people makes it easy to hate and persecute them, and to blame them for a bunch of stuff which isn't their fault. It really is a classic move with a rich history.
I was discussing this with my mom over the phone and we kind of both were wondering if this is the playbook that Hitler used.
ELI5 How come it seems now the old wise tale of Vietnamese eating pets and now its immigrants into the USA?
I don't understand that sentence.
ELI5 How come it seems now the old [wives'] tale of Vietnamese eating pets and now its immigrants into the USA?
That's still a rather incomprehensible sentence.
Rephrased to it's intended meaning, that would be:
ELI5 how come it seems now [that] the old [wives'] tale about Vietnamese people eating pets [is now being applied to] immigrants into the USA?
This is funny as the Vietnamese joke about Chinese this way, they have a saying that translates as, 'the only thing they don't eat with 4 legs is a table'
Even chairs?
Maybe OP is from some place with a high Vietnamese population so there were rumors about this? TX, LA, or CA maybe.
These rumors/stories, whatever you want to call them, is all new to me, but its just a way to dehumanize a certain group and therefore helping to justify labelling them the new boogieman.
ELI5 Its a way to make a group of people appear less human and different from yourself. This makes it easier to not relate to them and use them as a bad/ evil example of something you want to avoid.
Nothing to do with pets, but in Korea there are places that serve dog. At least it was the case when I was there 20+ years ago. But, of course they're not pets, they're farmed like any other livestock I would expect, and these places were not exactly commonplace even then, so maybe now they're just not a thing? I've not really looked into it.
Now, saying "x" people eat pets is likely just what others have said, a slur used against whichever subset of people is the target of the month. Maybe it once had roots in facts like those I've mentioned, but they're far removed from them now.
No, I did not partake in eating dog.
Your question is confusing, but I think the answer is...
Racist people heard something. Racist people think it's a fact. Racist people extrapolate from that thing they heard and assume the extrapolation is also a fact.
The "immigrant" group to shit on changes every so often where I live.
But when it changes the SAME rumors get saddled on to the new group.
"X group eats pets, better be careful around them."
"Y group will take your dog and butcher it. Better be watchful"
The 90s called, they want their dog whistle back
It's an ancient fascist trope.
Well as a lesbian about eating cats i that pussy taste good.
Cats are/were eaten in Vietnam. I have no idea about Haiti and it's impossible to search it currently. So, this is people jumping to conclusions that immigrants are eating pets.
As you should expect, the truth is actually between the extremes of “facist trope that is completely false” and “all immigrants are evil.” A person in Ohio recently killed and ate a cat, but was not an immigrant.
For anyone who doesn’t want to click the link, it contains bodycam video of a police officer in Ohio recently arresting a US citizen with blood all over her, fur in her teeth, a dead cat nearby, and multiple eye witnesses saying she killed and ate the cat.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13844919/bodycam-eating-cat-Ohio-trup-pets.html