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Hi Rosie

I think some of your stories are true, especially organ thief. Since everything if considering valuable there will be a chance that they will be stolen if we don't taking good care of them. I have heard that in China or any well developed countries, poor people sell their organ such as kidneys, rib etc. I 'm budhism people here believe in "As you sow, so you reap ", it's clever tactic to remind people not to do bad thing like these:-
1. If don't respect to parents and shout at them, when die will go to hell and mouth will be as small as size of a needle and it will be very difficult to eat anything.
2. Or if you torture and done some cruel things with animal, in your next life those animal will do the same as you have done to them.

seems scaring and I think I have also make a lot of mistakes. For the homework:-
1) I'm eating _an_ orange for lunch. I'm on a diet.
2) I love tasting _nothing__ wines.
3) Last winter I went skiing in _nothing__ Canada.
4) Helen, _the__ biscuits you bought yesterday are delicious. Please buy some more!
5) Have you ever been to _the__ Hyde Park in London?
6) Do you like eating _nothing__ cheese?
7) I spoke to __an_ artist who did these paintings. He seemed like 8) _an__ eccentric guy!
9) The English like to drink _nothing__ milk in their tea.
10) My mum looks so young: _nothing__ people often think she's my sister.

Bye,

Jow from Thailand

Hello Rosie,

Urban legends are mostly funny. Everyone knows that stories are not true, but for some reason people wants to believe in these stories. Maybe stories manipulate our imagination, atleast they make our lives more interesting.

You Rosie wrote about Eskimos, that they have many words for snow. I think that this is not only an urban legend. I have heard that they really have more words for snow. Here in Finland there is atleast two expressions for snow. One for snow what is so wet that you can make a snowman and one word for snow which is like powder when temperature is below zero celsius degrees.

In Finland have also other expressions related for snow and winter weather. For example Finnish word "hankikanto" means snow in springtime where the sun has made surface of snow so hard that you can walk on snow.

There are some urban legends too in a town where I live. Here are some buildings where dead man haunts. And also In the town centre there is a bell tower of an old church and if you are able run around of that tower durind the bell bangs its midnight, you will disappear.

In a town centre is also a bridge where stands four man like statues. One of these statues keeps a squirrell skin in its hand. This squirrell skin will fall if a virgin over 15 years old walks under this statue.

Anyway these stories are fun. Maybe there is some reason for these stories. I think that these stories are global. They are the same all over the world, but have also a local influence.

Sincerely yours
- ompputhecat -

Hallo Rosie,

Here are a couple legends I could remember.
The Maya calender predicts a doomsday in 2012, December. There was a nearly funny story about it at my work. A man, probably very tired with work, said, "I'm so
happy as it is going to be over soon!". "Why?". "We are having a doomsday this
December", he answered. A girl, who presented there, sighed, "We have to wait for
so long time yet".
The next one is not so gloomy. It is a world-wide legend about flying sausers.
They massively fly across the sky and sometimes draw amazing circles on wheat
fields of England.

The homework:
1) an
2) -
3) -
4) the
5) -
6) -
7) the
8) an
9) -
10) -

Best regards,
Yury_Sh

Hello Rossi.
Thanks for your explanatios about the use of the article. I do the exercices in my notebook and I correct them when you give us the solutions.
Regarding urban legends, I think it's possible the may have a grain of truth. When I was a child, a teenager, somebody told me one of these legends: a couple of teenagers go out in car to pass the evening in a lonely and dark place. The boy goes to pee and he doesn´t return Then, the girl hears somebody bouncing a ball on the top of the car. The girl faints because of terror. When she weaks up she finds out the ball isn´t a ball, but her boyfriend's head.
Probably this legend isn't truth word by word, but't it's certain that couples in a lonely place are sometimes bothered and even attacked by vicius people.
It's possible I'm very gullible, but sometimes real-life is worse than fiction. I think too you can´t live either beeing afraid of everything or mistruting everybody. It's possible I've believed the legend about the bottles of water, but I've thought "If somebody wants I fell asleep,somebody will inject something into my sealed bottle. I can't defend myself against every attackt, so I won´t worry".
Happy weekend.

Hi Rosie

I can't tell you how grateful I am for your paying attention to correct my mistakes.

You and the others above wrote some very interesting urban legends.
I can't add any new ones to it. I am not consider myself a gulliable and tremulous person but it is recommended to be more precautious for example in unknown places with unknown people and of course with unsealed bottles.

Having regard to my homework I completely agree with Yury_Sh's responses.

Many thanks

Krisztina from Hungary

Hi,

One the most fascinating fact about urban legend is that it is totally impossible to know if the story is true or not even if it seems unbelievable, who really knows ?... Most of time, there is somme slight differences which could be seen as proof that the story is not true but human brain doesn't memorize every detail of a story, only the main facts. So the differences prove nothing.

I heard some stories as one people who put his cat into his microwave to dry it or many other stories in hospital (but i will not tell them on the site of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ !)
I remember the Darwin prize which focused on the most stupid deaths. It was created in the 90's and spread all around the world very fast. The stories of these deaths were very funny and everybody wanted to believe them because we were feeling ourselves very smart compared to these people.

Thanks for this website, this is the first comment I post

Hi Rosie,

Thank you for the informative blog about urban legends. By the way, I am little confused about the meaning of 'urban legend', 'conspiratory theory' and 'myths'. Do all these infer to the same thing? I heard a couple of conspiratory theories, like Osama Bin Laden is still alive, In US there's a place called area 51 (if I remember it correctly), which is a forbidden military area where they'd kept aliens that were captured in the 50s after the flying saucer they were travelling in crashed somewhere in Mexico and drowned ships reappearing in the Bermuda Triangle area and so on. But, I'm not that gullible and find it extremely difficult to believe in many things that I hear. Now a days, it's so difficult to believe even in things that we see, many computer software are there that can morph images and videos which can't be caught by ordinary eyes. Recently, in facebook I saw images of a snake having 4-5 heads, then in another image some archaeologists were digging old human graves and the remains of the men seemed to be so giant that it would have been easily 6-7 times in size that of an average man. Then there's another urban legend often heard and discussed about is the Yeti (snow men), living in the Himalayas who're believed to be Herculean in size and pops up once in a blue moon. Many news channels sometime flash the sensational image of large human footprints in the snow believed to be made by those Yetis, probably to increase their TRP. Such stories endlessly keep on circulating and are relatively popular among less-inquiring minds. By the way, the organ thief seems true to me and it happens in many places. So be aware when you travel!

Looking forward to your next blog.

Best Regards,
Rajeeb
P.S. Please don't forget to correct my mistakes. I am already thinking of appointing you as my editor when I write a novel! :)

Hi Rosie!

I will tell you a Buenos Aires urban legend. (I`m studying English, so I hope you can understand me!)

This Legend called: "The white Lady"

A young boy meets a beautiful girl and invites her to drink something. While they are in a bar drinking coffe, she felt cold and he gaves to her his coat. Suddenly, she spot the coat with coffe.
The next day, the young man went to the beautiful girl`s house to look for his coat. But when he arrived, the girl´s mother said to him: "It can´t be possible! My daugther is deth, she is buried in Recoleta´s Cementery"
He went to the Cementery and he saw his coat over the vault of the girl.
after that, he commits suicide.

The legend said that all nights the girl´s ghost walks around the Cementery.

If somethime you came to Bs As you will visit her vault...

See you!
Ariadna.-

Hello Rosie I am late on reply a little bit.
I recollect now the story about coca cola in Georgia. Here is such story, that it is so chemical that even it can be use for cleaning the loos and sinks, and its ridiculous because the chemical which can cleaning something is oxygen which is not dangerous for body and this chemical have such trait. So there is a grain or speck of truth, but not completely. As everywhere in my country there are many such ridiculous stories and the electorate mostly are children who can not realize or check the truth.
1) I'm eating ___an_ orange for lunch. I'm on a diet.
2) I love tasting wines.
3) Last winter I went skiing in Canada.
4) Helen, __the__ biscuits you bought yesterday are delicious. Please buy some more!
5) Have you ever been to __the__ Hyde Park in London?
6) Do you like eating cheese?
7) I spoke to __the__ artist who did these paintings. He seemed like 8) _an___ eccentric guy!
9) The English like to drink milk in their tea.
10) My mum looks so young: people often think she's my sister.

Thank you Rosie for clarifying my queries. However, you're being generous to ignore my mistakes such as I wrote conspiratory theory instead I should have written conspiracy theory. I realised it when I read your reply. Wish you a great weekend!

@Ariadna, your story was bit frightening. I wish not to date someone like that even by mistake.

Regards,
Rajeeb