this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
97 points (94.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35806 readers
2228 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Bonehead@kbin.social 30 points 11 months ago (3 children)

"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 13 points 11 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.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/147902/is-the-alleged-original-meaning-of-the-phrase-blood-is-thicker-than-water-real

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Most of those old sayings have had the rejoinder omitted, which completely shifted their original meaning, in fact. For example, "Great minds think alike" originally closed with "but rarely do they differ", etc.

[–] Bahalex@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Twinklebreeze@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Not all wives tales are false. Most are, but not all.

[–] amio@kbin.social 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"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 3 points 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.

[–] Spendrill@lemm.ee 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A Canard (French for duck) refers to something often believed to be true but isn't.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The origin of this expression is because the French do not believe that Quebec is real.

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago
[–] Spendrill@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's ducks all the way down.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

🇲🇶🦆💬"Ouai"

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago
[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

“Canard.”

noun 1. an unfounded rumor or story. "the old canard that LA is a cultural wasteland"

[–] HeathenPope@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

These fall under the category of "Half-baked Idea". This includes 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.")

[–] Lafari@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

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". But is there something specific to label it as, i.e. "That's a [insert word]"

[–] Garbanzo@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

If you're not trying to be polite, "That's bullshit" works perfectly.

[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

"Myth" is a word I'd end that sentence with.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

Misconception?

[–] Tinfoiledhat@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Colbert's "truthiness" comes to mind

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

"Canard" is the term, as another commented. 🤙🏼

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] diegantobass@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I dunno. Something being a proverb doesn't make it inherently false, which is what we're trying to define I guess

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Steve@communick.news 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I like Fallacious Bumper Sticker! I'm absolutely using that going forward. It's better than Pithy Folk Ignorance that I used to use.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

I dunno, I kinda like Pithy Folk Ignorance.

[–] Knitwear@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Platitude

ish

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"Decimate" =/= "devastate", but common misuse becomes common use, so here we are. 🤦‍♂️

[–] SuiXi3D@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago (10 children)

Language is fun like that. Kinda like how ‘literally’ can, and often does, mean ‘figuratively’, which has the opposite meaning.

[–] Tranus@programming.dev 4 points 11 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.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Bullshitism.

[–] Mango@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Adage

How has nobody said this yet? Some guy actually said idiom.

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Because an adage isn't necessarily untrue, like the OP is asking.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] The_Mike_Drop@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago
[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Baloney

In the actual deep south we say "fruta", "frula", "saraza"

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thought-terminating cliche

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

false premise?

[–] beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Lophostemon@aussie.zone 3 points 11 months ago
[–] Nemo@midwest.social 2 points 11 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.

[–] Identity3000@lemmy.world 2 points 11 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").

load more comments
view more: next ›