What common misconception do you see far too often on Reddit?
Posted Jul 27, 2020, 10:04 AM UTC
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I often see comments claiming that the proverb "Blood is thicker than water" actually means the opposite of what it's usually believed to mean. The claim purports that our current version is a corruption of the original phrase; "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." So the proverb allegedly originally stated that friendship was more important than family, right?
I've seen this post as a top comment a ton of times in threads about terrible or entitled family members, or ironically enough AskReddit threads asking for common misconceptions.
However, it's all bullshit. "Blood is thicker than water" has always meant what people think it means, and it's actually the common Reddit misconception that is mistaken.
The "Blood of the covenant" interpretation dates back to H. Clay Trumbull's "The Blood Covenant - A Primitive Rite And Its Bearings On Scripture" from 1893. Over 120 years back, impressive.
But the original proverb goes back way further than that. It's modern phrasing of "Blood is thicker than water" can be seen in a collection of Proverbs by John Ray from 1670, and variants thereof can be dated as far back as the German epic Reinhart Fuchs from 1180.
So, despite being one of the most common "Um, ACTUALLY" corrections I see trivia-hungry people on the internet use, the idea that the "Blood" in this proverb would mean anything other than "Blood relation" is a massive misconception in itself.
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I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen post about this
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Socialism/communism can work in the real world. There’s entire boards devoted to it and incels who will defend it more fervently than their anime waifu body pillow. Even though every time it’s tried it leads to the death of millions.
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That downvotes should be used for disagreeing. Originally not true.
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It's true, originally the intent was to downvote anything that didn't contribute to discussion.
Though these days you often see the flipside of people posting comments with an unpopular opinion, but being downvoted for being overly aggressive or dickish in theor comment and not contributing to discussion. These folk almost always claim they were downvoted for just having a different opinion.
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It's more of like a replacement for retard at this point, but using autism as an insult. I mean it doesn't bother me much because I don't really give a shit about what insults people use (unless it's the n word), but I just kinda don't want to be compared to an incel with a waifu pillow and 500 pony fleshlights all of the time, y'know
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