Stuff You Should Know - The Origins of Some Everyday Superstitions

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Why exactly do we avoid walking under a ladder? Why is stepping on a crack in the sidewalk such a big deal? What kind of monster carries a rabbit’s foot in their pocket? The answers to these questions and more lie in wait ahead in this episode. Look out! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life

Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio Hey and welcome to the podcast Josh here Chuck there not Josh and Clark which cracks me up still every time This is Josh and Chuck your pals. You know us don't you know us and this is stuff you should know Are you superstitious at all? I feel like we probably talked about this at some point Yeah, I was like have we done a superstition episode and the closest one we did was Friday the 13th

Am I superstitious to answer your question Chuck? Let me just get back to that right now Yes, I am in a lot of dumb ways, but like really childish ways. I'm not in any way shape or form I'm genuinely superstitious, but I knock wood when I say something that like invites the hubris of the gods, you know I feel like I've seen that out of you a little bit here and there that you mention it. I What else do I do? Oh, I throw salt over my shoulder When I see you walk under ladders. Yeah, I've got no problem with ladders. That's just ridiculous okay, yeah, see I'm not superstitious at all and And sometimes even bugs Emily that I will sort of flout that blatantly

by walking under ladders or Not knocking on wood and she's just like just do it and I'm like better safe than some stupid wood That's the superstitious mindsets better safe than sorry. I guess so and it's fine I'm not I'm not gonna yuck someone's yum superstitions or are just sort of silly and fine, but I I'm a man of science and I know that there is no real-world connection to knocking on wood No, so I don't do it, but I will do it to satisfy my wife. Yeah, I think that's very kind of you You're you're and I don't make fun of her. I don't go. Okay. Well do this dumb thing you think works, right? I'll knock on what I'll say. Okay. Sorry. I think I've said before you me superstitious of the numbers four and nine

So yeah, I will do things for her to like I'll try not to let the gas number Like the dollar amount or the gallon amount can have a four in it Which is harder than you'd think to do or not when she turns 49. Is she gonna freak out? She's just gonna be like well I'm 50 She's gonna go right over two years. Yeah for sure. Let's say for a year. That's what I do. Oh, that's an even better I know I'll pass that one along doors and then skip right over to 50 when the time comes, right? Just go Oh, but if you look on some Japanese or Korean or I think Chinese as well Elevators, they don't have like a number four when there's a fourth floor. They'll leave it. They'll skip it like 13 in America

Or they will just put the letter F Right, so there you go because I think they're saying like F the number four Yeah, and I've also tried to not That one myself It was okay, I also try to not be the jerk that says No, there's still the 13th floor even though it says it's not 13 Man, I feel like we've really evolved and grown up over the years, you know, I mean this just started when I was in my 30s And I'm 50. Yeah, same here. Crazy. Yeah, except you're not 50 early 30s for me and I'm nowhere near 50 right now

You get closer than you think So Rather than talk about that kind of thing. Let's talk about yes superstition. So Just to kind of start off. I was digging into What makes us superstitious and and there's this article. I found all these articles I just put together a handful of cute little articles from how stuff works most of them written by Debbie Ronca your pal Yeah, and the the the premise of the whole thing is that humans are Are superstitious because we have this desire to control the world that like that is a way for us to

To not feel like we're just subject to the whims and vagaries of fate or God or whatever That we can we can do things by noticing patterns making cause and effect causal connections and then Using them to our advantage by doing something or not doing something in a certain situation to affect the outcome That's a superstition at its base Yeah, and you know superstitions don't work in one sense because yeah, of course if you're a baseball player who Doesn't change their underwear after they have a big game in the playoffs

For the remainder of the playoffs, of course, that's not really gonna help you hit better or feel better or pitch better but It may if that tricks your mind into being more relaxed or more confident you may perform better So in a sense it maybe does work in a in a weird way precisely Yeah, I saw that in a number of places that there is this idea that rituals like superstitions Mm-hmm can have a real-world effect, but they have a real-world effect on you the person who's superstitious Right, and they I think I could also I didn't see it anywhere But it it's logical to an extent and we're just throwing out superstitions here

So I feel like I can riff sure we're riffing but the idea is there could kind of be a no-cebo effect to that thing too Where if you feel like you've violated some sort of superstitious taboo like walking under a ladder and not remedy. Yeah You might be a little more clumsy than you would think because you're psyching yourself out You're expecting bad luck to happen And so you may actually kind of go face first into bad luck where otherwise you might not because you hadn't been focused on something bad happening Or there's a reverse attribution that happens Where you're like you hit your thumb with a hammer later that day and you're like see it's because I walked into that ladder, right? right or

Or is there an evolutionary basis in this you're right? I mean, I think it was in that one article from Debbie where she talked about like an animal hunting at night and If there was a full moon out they may make a false association with like a rustling sound in the bushes Being connected to that full moon being connected with a kill and eating good for the night or being killed by that that large animal So you run away. Yeah, I guess so avoiding that animal that's wrestling in the bushes I guess that makes more sense Well, both of them do because you can have a positive reinforcer or a negative

Reinforcer a reinforcer or a punisher is what they're called and it will either make you want to do the Repeat that behavior that you you think is magical or avoid that behavior that you think is magical So it could go either way in that situation and at its base the idea that if you hear a rustling in the bushes You would probably probably be wise to run and therefore under natural selection You would be likely to survive a lion attack because you didn't stick around to see whether it was a lion So you could pass on your genes so we could select for scaredy-cats or natural selection could And then that makes sense at its basis when you start to add Additional things additional omens or signs like that full moon you were talking about that superstition really sets it because before it's just like

That's just a good instinct. That's a survival instinct. Yeah, once you add the full moon being a part of it Then you've reached superstition and it's probably a little foolish All right Should we dive into some of these? Yeah, because these are so great, man. Yeah I mean mainly what this is is a an origin Podcast on the origin of some of these terms. It's like where Peter Parker came from but with superstition. That's right Some of these customs like horseshoes I do not do it, but I whenever I see a house or an entryway with a horseshoe hung above it

I always think that's kind of cool. I just like the tradition of it all I don't think I mean it's a superstition, but I don't judge it and think it's silly I think it's kind of a and I think most of these are kind of just fun customs that I don't mind Either adhering to or seeing them around me, right sure because there is something to be said There's something I'm very quaint and charming about folksy-ness earthiness that like a lot of these superstitions have in a horseshoe It's very much like that. Yeah, and it does have that kind of charming charming Aspect to it. I think also one of the things about horseshoes and being it being positive is that it's meant to be a good luck charm as well Like not only does it supposedly ward off evil. It actually blesses you with good luck for walking under it typically

Yeah, so this one may have its roots in Ireland This is story a legend of a blacksmith and the devil Blacksmith is working along forging horseshoes The devil shows up and says do me my shoes. I want horseshoes on my little cloven hoes No, no, no, it's you need to do a Sammy D. Oh Hey, man, I could use a little iron down below if you know what I mean And so the devil appears asked for that and the blacksmith Recognizes the devil takes a hot horseshoe and nails it into the hooves

The devil gets burned it rips them off and says, I'll never go near these horses again. No No, what does he say? What does he sound like when he says? I'm not me and any other listener listening right now are not going to stand for that kind of laziness Sorry cat, but I am done. So with the horseshoe thing Thank you Chuck and Then all of a sudden that becomes tied to the tradition of hanging a horseshoe over your door to keep the devil out or evil spirits Yeah, so yeah You and any time you see it from what I can tell with superstition when or folklore even when the devil makes an appearance you can just say

Okay, the devil is this Christian incarnation of any and all evil spirits from fairies to nymphs to witches to Whatever that predate the traditional Christian idea of the devil, but it's the same thing you're being protected from evil By this thing and so the horseshoe itself has like a story as a horseshoe But the fact that horseshoes have usually typically been made of iron the whole time people have been making horseshoes in and of itself is Makes it kind of like a good luck charm and that people used to attribute Magic to to iron all over the world the Arabs Chinese the Western Europeans I think the Caldeans which were in ancient. I think they're still around

Catholic Eastern Catholic sect from Iraq a lot of cultures Basically said iron is something special So the fact that you could you would make a horseshoe out of iron meant that it was automatically a good luck charm And then the shape also made it even luckier because crescent crescent shapes have been viewed as having very special magical powers for a very long time That's right. And not only that but the number of nails seven holes in a horseshoe in the horse's foot that is a lucky number in many many cultures and The way you hang it though is kind of where it comes into some disputes Some people say hang it upside down to hold in your to hold the good luck other people say hang it

Or did I say upside down or right side up? I think you said upside down heals down the little points down Yeah, heels down would be dumping good luck on you heels up would be containing that good luck for those who enter, right? And I you know, I've heard people say it both ways So I don't know if there is a right way. I the right way is to put two horseshoes one up one down There you go That why why discriminate their horseshoes for that's sake I like it and then one other thing I think you should take a break, but I wanted to give a shout out to you know how I'm always into contemporary journalism

Yes, I found a an article in the Journal of American Folklore by Robert M. Lawrence from 1896 that is just a page turner. So I shout him out. I recommend everybody go read it's about horseshoes and Superstition and it's pretty great. All right, we'll be right back Hey everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse And the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So, yeah, you might not realize how much of a difference It's just that you can't really tell what's going on in your house. It's just that you can't really tell what's going on in your house It helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So, yeah, you might not realize it

But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Okay, see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously. I swear and you won't have to send an SOS Because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band or each week to guide you through life step by step

Oh, not another one kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life Just stop now. If so tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts All right Chuck so we've gone through horseshoes. I feel like the well is dry. Is this the end of the episode? It's not my friend because I'm stuck at my pinky wrapped around a wishbone And I'm just waiting on you to come over well I wish that this episode could just go on forever and we'll be doomed to eternal damnation doing this episode forever

The furcula is the wishbone of a foul of a turkey a duck or a chicken and that's where the clavicle is Fused to the sternum Right above the sternum there. Yeah fuse together. So Everyone knows that the trick you put one pinky on each side of a wishbone You both make a wish you tear it and whoever you know it breaks apart and whoever you got to dry it out first That's key if you try to do it fresh out of a turkey You're just gonna be pulling and pulling because it's collagen and collagen doesn't break very easily Yeah, but whoever ends up with the biggest part of the wishbone

Their wish will come true and this goes way way back doesn't it super far back as far back as we've identified So far to the Etruscans who were the rivals of the ancient Greeks and the predecessors of the ancient Romans Who lived in Italy and they engaged in? Animal sack all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it was probably orgy every night of the week kind of thing but one of the things they did was blood sacrifices of chickens and For some reason the wishbone caught their attention Chickens and birds in general were believed to be oracles or divine You could tell the future with that kind of thing or you could make a wish on them and for some reason the furculem

Was identified as this particularly magically potent part of this already magical animal the bird or the chicken Yeah, so they would they would stroke this thing. They would make a wish on it. I think the breaking apart Didn't come to a little bit later. Yeah I think that was the Romans because they didn't have a lot of chickens which surprised me I thought the Romans had a lot of everything Yeah, are there any if there's a Roman scholar out there who let us know it is that sound hinky is that makes sense? And if so, why did the Romans not have chickens? And I think we just came with a new

Super in-group t-shirt first. Yeah Romans colon wear the chickens. No, you mean colon that's right. We need a colon jingle We got a colon jingle, didn't we? I don't think so. Did somebody already send one in? No, I saw an email from a guy saying we we have a colon sound. I think he's talking about a fart Oh, I see. I might have read that wrong though But anyway, not as many chickens not as many wishbones. So people would break bones in half And that supposedly is where the breaking of the wishbone finally comes in Which is then of course passed along to britain passed on to america

Where we had lots of Ducks and turkeys and chickens. Yeah And that's kind of the deal. That's why americans still do that today. I still do it every now and then sure. Yeah I mean, why not the animal died for that purpose mostly You might as well do something about it But there's supposedly the brits like took that and really ran with it and added some stuff to it Like initially in in britain or I should say during the golden age of wishbone breaking in great britain Um

You would balance the wishbone on your nose Make a wish and then take it off let it fall off and um And then you would go about breaking it with somebody And then after that if you won the larger piece you still had another obstacle to make it pass Which was you would take each piece put it in your fist and make the person choose a fist And if they chose the shorter one finally you who held on to this longer one throughout the whole time Will get your wish granted if not they could come up and sneak your wish away Um just by getting the longer piece out of your fist at the end there

So of course the puritans are like that seems pretty ungodly. Let's really let's trim this down and make it more puritan asking There you go The only dubious part of this part of the article to me is It says that's where the term getting your lucky break comes from and I'm not quite sure about that No from everything I saw that came about from playing pool and billiards Uh starting in the mid 19th century. So which makes way more sense and then lucky break one more thing about the furcula It's actually a really ancient bone um

It allows wing movement among turkeys and chickens and stuff like that, but um, they also found them among velociraptors and t-rex as well to allow for arm movement and extension So it kind of is one of those things that directly connects the dinosaurs to modern day birds Very cool. I think so too. I wasn't gonna let that one pass man. No way So should we get into salt? Yeah So throwing salts over your shoulder. That's the thing you spill a little bit of salt You take a you take a pinch pinch you throw it over that left shoulder

and this uh They say may have come from da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper Uh, if you look closely judas is scary. It has knocked over the salt Um spilled that salt. Judas was not a good guy. He betrayed jesus and the bible And so the association of salt and disloyalty started there And the idea that the devil Is sitting over your left shoulder and you know some christian beliefs And you're throwing salt over your shoulder to blind the devil over that left shoulder and that might be where that comes from

Yeah, I saw elsewhere I saw it a few places that it was da Vinci started that with that painting I also saw that he was following on a much much older tradition of the idea of spilling salt being considered unlucky right, which makes sense because um People probably were not actually paid in salt ever at any point in western history Yeah, we talked about this in our currency episode. I hope we busted that one because I don't think it's actually true It's just such a great a great, um

Factoid but not necessarily a true one, but that's not to say that salt wasn't an extremely valuable commodity for a very long time So they think that there was a taboo that grew around spilling the salt that turned into a superstition That had kind of practical origins, which was that's really expensive stuff Don't don't spill it or else you're basically letting the devil take over And that that made sense for why you would throw some of that salt over your shoulder Although that's even more wasteful, but that's what I was getting at I just don't get that. Yeah Yes, agreed. I guess it's just a pinch, but still maybe that came about after salt became a little more easy to get

Now it's basically free like people pay you to take salt now basically You try to go out on a street corner in new york and not have somebody give you salt. Yeah, it just happens Uh, I think we could probably move on to the rabbit's foot now. This is my favorite. So just be prepared Yeah, this is one where I remember and you probably do too and growing up in the 70s and 80s Uh, I saw a lot of highly dyed and colored rabbits foot key chains And I always thought those were real rabbits feet And thankfully have learned that they are generally synthetic these days These days, I'm not sure about the 70s man. They may have been where they real rabbits feed. It's entirely possible

I mean think about where you're seeing those things like next to a defleppard mirror You know like the people peddling these were not necessarily the the best and brightest society had to offer And they probably had a line on rabbits cheaper than they did on synthetic rabbits feet in the 70s, you know Yeah, there was I don't know if you remember this but in the 80s at my school There was a trend that happened for a little while where Girls would have these ridiculous key chains with like Three keys and like 40 other things on them. Uh-huh including rabbits feet and like feathers and

I remember the mr. T feathers that you would put on your ear and it wasn't until you were older that you realized it was a roach clip And that's why it hurt so much. Do you remember that? Oh, sure totally But yeah, there was just a big Goddy key chain movement in the 80s And it was always girls who had all these things on their key chains And I feel like all of them always had like a purple or pink rabbits foot No, they definitely did every single one of them. There wasn't a single girl that didn't have that in the 80s

Maybe early 90s and they also had that big giant multi-colored pen Yes, you know the one that could could write in all sorts of different colors and yes big hair too for sure It was the age of aquanet That's right, but uh, we're talking about the rabbits foot here and this kind of goes back to uh, the idea of a totem totemism and carrying around a lucky charm

And in ancient times hairs and rabbits were lucky for a lot of cultures. Yeah so One of the reasons why they were considered lucky is because they were a symbol of fertility Which extended not just to like having a bunch of kids Which is something you really wanted to do in an agrarian society because more kids you had the more help you had on the farm The more you could grow and produce and and survive all sorts of terrible misfortune Um, but also fertility in those crops as well. So rabbits were considered lucky in that respect But then also rabbits make their homes underground

So they were also associated with the underworld too And there's a lot of spirits that live in the underworld that you may or may not want to be in contact with That's right. And this I mean this seems to have been something that started In ancient times and probably never stopped all the way through Today like you don't see them around that much anymore, but it's still a thing The thing that cracks me up is it was originally hairs feet Um, which is the, you know, slightly larger version of the rabbit But they realized along the way like you can't really tell if it's a hair or a rabbit's foot once it's cut off of the body

So we'll just say they're both lucky It's basically the consensus everyone came to in the superstitious world Yeah, but I mean, what's the difference really the different size right and speed That's about it from what I can tell But but um, one of the places where it popped up So the rabbit's foot as we understand it today as a lucky charm was actually brought over by People who were enslaved in West Africa and brought to the Americas Um, and they developed hoodoo, which is not to be confused with voodoo. It's a totally different thing

hoodoo was more of a African West African folk magic Right and one of the things about West African folk magic one of the hallmarks of it Is that things have an opposite a reverse effect So a rabbit's foot was lucky because it was actually a highly deeply evil thing In that a rabbit typically one where you saw a rabbit at night in a graveyard was actually a witch It was a transfigured witch who had morphed into the shape of a rabbit If you could shoot that rabbit with a silver bullet around midnight in a graveyard And you cut off its rear which was the magical foot the the rare few or most magical on a rabbit

And the left foot which was the sinister associated with witches That was a an extremely potent magic charm You basically had the back left leg of a witch In your pocket and so because it was such a potent evil thing It actually warded off other evil so you could carry it around on you to protect you from real evil And that's where our kind of idea of a rabbit's foot in America came about as a lucky charm So the luckiest one you could have is the left rear foot of a rabbit Shot in a cemetery with a silver bullet around midnight. That's precisely correct as far as American hoodoo is concerned

It doesn't get much more magical than that. I love it. I love it too. And apparently there's an anecdote where Booker T. Washington Um, accidentally he was in DC or at a um at some sort of dignitary dinner And he and the Austrian the Austrian ambassador I think got their coat switched and the Austrian ambassador realized that he had Booker T.'s coat because he or that he didn't have his coat Because he found a rabbit's foot in the pocket and Booker T. Apparently was like that's that's my coat That's mine and I wish you hadn't told people that please please put that down Amazing. Yeah. Um, all right. So let's take a break and maybe we'll come back and cover two more wacky superstitions right after this

Hey friends when you're staying at an airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an airbnb and if it could What could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to airbnb the backyard guest house Over childhood home now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an airbnb too find out what your place could be earning at airbnb dot ca slash host Hey, I'm lance bass host of the new i hard podcast frosted tips with lance bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough Or you're at the end of the road. Uh, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because I'll be there for you Oh, man. And so my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep We know that michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one. Uh-huh kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen So we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye

Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts All right, chuck. So I think next we can't avoid it any longer. We have to talk about walking under a ladder Which i'm not at all afraid of but I do find this one particularly fascinating In part because there's a lot of interesting theories But also there's ways to undo the problems you created for yourself with further superstitious behavior Yeah, and you know, we should point out the uh, regular real world danger walking under a tall ladder Uh, if there's a tall ladder up there, maybe someone on it. There may be a hammer sitting up there

There may be a tray of paint Uh, you know walking under a ladder there could be a real world consequence that has nothing to do with luck By walking under a ladder, right? So, I mean there's it's kind of like spilling really really expensive salt a taboos kind of developed around a very practical thing to not do Right, uh, but that has nothing to do with a superstition superstition wise They think it might have its roots in religion Uh, if you believe in the bible you believe in the holy trinity of the father son and the holy ghost

or the holy spirit and uh, that you know forms a triangle and The triangle and the number three can be sacred in other cultures as well And so the idea that you are walking through that triangle, which is the ladder means that you are breaking up The father the son and the holy ghost you're breaking that that three-way connection, right? so, um When you when you you don't want to do that because there's a couple of things you don't want to one you're

Uh, you're insulting the christian god uh, very powerful potent god and then secondly, you're also, um In summoning the devil or inviting the devil in because you've broken that very sacred bond Um, that represents the trinity and christianity. So, um that in and of itself is is reason enough not to walk under a ladder, correct? I think so except I do it. What are some what are you blasphemer? What are some other? Um, reasons why you might not want to walk under a ladder superstitious wise though Uh, I think they use ladders for gallows. Yeah, that would make sense too

Or a ladder against a wall might resemble a gallows. So There was a theory that if you you know walk under a ladder It's just reminiscent of walking to your to your execution or you're basically walking Through where the person would be hanging To yeah, god has got to be bad luck. It's just creepy to even think about and then supposedly the egyptians had a superstition against walking under a ladder and that they said that you could conceivably accidentally Spy a god walking up or down the ladder I couldn't see this anywhere except repeated everywhere

Um, I didn't see any scholarship on it And i'm not entirely certain when the first ladders were developed There's like some cave paintings from I think 60 000 years ago that neanderthals made in europe Then it looks like a ladder, but it could also just be a design um And the ladders just kind of hang out until the 19th century in Dayton when some guy invented the collapsible ladder So right somewhere in there It's possible that the ladder was invented and the egyptians used it

Some people also point to jacob's ladder being present in the bible But that could also have just been a strange translation Where it would make sense to somebody living in a world where ladders have been invented That what they're describing is a ladder, but they were not necessarily describing a ladder. You know what I mean? Right? Yeah Yeah, so who knows who knows but it makes a good story because i'm i'm guessing the Site of a god going up or down a ladder viewed from underneath is not pleasant You don't want to see that jump. No Uh, this is one like you mentioned earlier though that you can undo with further superstition

Um, there are a few different things if you accidentally let's say walk under a ladder First of all, that means get off your phone And look where you're going Because walking under a ladder is a very specific thing and if you do it unawares then that means you should pay attention more Right So that aside, uh, if you happen to accidentally do that um You can make a wish while you're walking under the ladder

Uh, and then walk backwards through that ladder again and that might undo the bad luck Right and get that wish coming true. That one's good. It makes sense Uh, one of my favorites is so disgusting. You can spit three times through Two of the wrongs between two of the wrongs Oh, it's pretty gross. Okay. You can also make the sign of the fig Which is if you take your thumb and you put it between your uh, four finger and your middle finger And let it yeah, they got your nose. Yes, exactly. That's called the fig sign And actually it's called the got your nose dating back to uh, well before it represented female genitalia back in the day

And it was considered a very rude thing to to make it somebody probably along the lines of you know Flipping someone the bird, which is of course a phallus. Um, that you're putting in their face But the the for I read this this is really fascinating If we have any listeners in russia who can attest let us know But the sign of the fig is apparently pretty, um pretty, uh Widespread in russia But it's lost its um, it's kind of negative meaning and apparently it means really emphatic no So that's the okay the sign of the fig or the fig sign

yet No, you have to be like yet I said it before I'll say it again the last time yet I got your yet You can say bread and butter when you walk under that ladder now cancel out that bad luck Uh, and there's another one that did the it was spitting if you spit on your shoe But you have to spit on it then not look at your shoe until the spit has dried supposedly my favorite is the other one

The fingers Yeah, you have to basically what make a peace sign. Is that correct? No, just cross your fingers. Oh cross your fingers. I forgot that that was a different thing than making the peace sign Making the peace sign is like the opposite of crossing your fingers. I think about it, but you cross your fingers Until you see a dog and then you can stop and the spell has been broken The bad luck has been removed because you saw a dog I love that one because you know the dog is like dog is good luck. I didn't do anything Now i'm just trying to picture you someone flashing you the peace sign and you crossing your fingers in return

And they're like, yeah, man hope Yeah, exactly fingers crossed hope for bees So, let's see. How about stepping on cracks the last one? Yeah, so this is one I have a personal association with and I know I mentioned it at some point On the show in the past 13 years, but I don't recall it I have a thing where I I think it's a minor low-level OCD

Um, it doesn't manifest itself in a lot of ways, but ever since I was a kid. I have no idea why right? I purposefully step on cracks when I'm noticing it Your toast your mom is toast When I notice it, I don't like Think like every time I'm walking like oh, I got a step on cracks But still to this day if I notice like I've stepped on a crack with my right foot I will then step on the next crack with my left foot to balance it out That's harder to do than you than it seems at first glance, isn't it?

It is and it has led to little weird stutter steps here and there in my life ever since I was a kid Nobody much knows about it, but I do know that I've told that story at some point And the only thing I can think is that it might just be a I might be slightly on the OCD spectrum Maybe but one of those little stutter steps did bring you good luck because I remember it was on one of those Ad shoots that you're doing it and you fell into the arms of Eric Estrada And that's good luck in anybody's measure always always But uh, yeah stepping on a crack though usually

Denotes bad luck step on a crack break your mother's back step on a line break your father's spine Did you know that second one? I had heard of it, but it's certainly not ubiquitous like your mother's back. Yeah divo left that one out That's right. That wasn't a divo song wouldn't it? Yeah, I was in whip it Right look at good Lickerish whip remember remember the simpsons variety show episode where Wayland Smithers was doing a version of whip it, but with licorice I say whip it licorice whip

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot you have cove it. I got it. I know my polarity Good 30% Oh, that's good. Um So the idea that this is bad luck it could come from Um, again from the old days where a crack signified a gap In the boundary between earth and the metaphysical And if you're interacting with this chasm Even if it's just a crack in the in the ground then that could bring misfortune to you and your families

Makes sense. Uh, a lot of people were scared of things in the ground or even like Crevasse on a wall or something who knows what it was hiding Which you could also kind of see stemming from those, you know You know hunter-gatherer days where it was like, yeah, you don't want to put your finger in there because something really bad can happen And oh, yeah, you know think about that a black widow could could sting you sure like that or bite you and That's a good way to kind of pass that along without having to explain black widows and venom and that kind of thing This is there's evil spirits that dwell is well in cracks. I don't mess with them Yeah, I never really thought about that. You don't go sticking your hand in the crack. No, you'd have to be a dingus

Sorry, sorry, Chuck. You okay? No, no, no. I'm good. I'm good. That wasn't a good fall. Okay, so You actually do kind of fall in line with another version of the superstition where people say that stepping out of crack Is actually a positive thing because you break the devil's back So you're actually breaking the devil's back chuck when you do that and basically that's where that came from You're making early religious days. It's possible. I could actually see that and you just forgot all about it Well, it's still a thing though like grown adults like myself Still do it and there was a poll supposedly in England where 3,000 people

They polled and said that One in 20 would not step on crack still is grown-ups Because they thought it could lead to bad luck. Yeah, I mean there's all sorts of other superstitions people have like Um, uh, well like what chuck? Uh Emily when she passes a car with a headlight out will kiss her hand and hit the ceiling of the car Yeah, I don't know if that's good luck or not or just a sort of a game There's supposedly um, you are supposed to lift your feet over a bridge

See that one. I've heard that um Yeah, there's just a lot of like weird little modern superstitions that that we might never know the origins of You know knocking on wood. Yeah, which is a good one. That's the biggest one, but we're not going to talk about that one Do you know the origin? Yeah, yeah the Celts as far as we know the Celts and other cultures felt like trees were Very enchanted places filled with all sorts of spirits And they would actually sacrifice humans to the trees which made them even more mystical and magical

Um, and so when you were knocking on wood you were basically asking those spirits for luck or a favor help or something like that And then when you knock twice the second knock was meant to say thank you very much for that help Look at there. Yeah and folks that appeared to be on the fly But the secret is you researched that and that didn't have a chance to hey man That's okay as long as we got it in there I think people would have been been like what how did you not talk about that you talked about at the beginning You didn't follow up with it. So we did and I feel good. All right

Um, you feel good I feel great. Well, and I think the superstition episode has come to a conclusion Chuck So if you want to know more about superstitions Type that word in the search bar at good old house stuff works and it will bring up a bunch of good little articles about those And others we haven't talked about and since I said search bar. It's time for listener mail Yeah, this one is from poison control and this was kind of cool We did a show on poison control centers And we heard from poison control centers

I always love it when that happens. Yeah, same here corrections when experts write in Oh, sure. Yeah, and and this is a correction and we're happy to issue it, but Um, they were very kind and they really loved the fact that we did a show kind of highlighting the work they do Uh, and they're always a little more official though than like regular fan mail. Yeah And this one starts out. Hello, mr. Bryant and mr. Clark We don't know who you are I hope this email finds you both well. I'm a big fan of stuff. You should know and I work at the headquarters For the american association of poison control centers

We would like to express our sincerest gratitude for showcasing poison control centers In a recent episode of your podcast stuff. You should know Toward the end of said episode at 52 50 You mentioned the national poison helpline phone number 1-800-222-1222 followed by url that is not accurate. Oh boy the accurate web page triage tool For the apcc is poison help.org and I think we said poison.org We need to go back and fix that and I want to accidentally send somebody to the wrong place

Yeah, we should probably actually do that. Uh, the two sites have similar urls So we completely understand but the correct address again Is www.poisonhelp.org Thank you again for dedicating an episode to poison control centers Let us know if you have any questions with gratitude. Uh, this one we got a few of them, but this is from Davis ladley and operations associate there. That's awesome Yeah, thank you very much. Davis. That was a great correction and we will go do something about it So everybody can go here. So one of us go poison help dot. Oh, yeah

Beijing mr. Herman Look out for it in the coming days Thanks. Yeah, sorry. We screwed up the one url that we needed to get right right Right because I don't think we mentioned any others in that whole episode Nope. Well, if you want to get in touch with chuck and I uh, like um, Davis did um, great name by the way I was admired that name Davis. I thought it was a cool first name. Yeah, me too. Um, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com Stuff you should know is a production of iheart radio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the iheart radio app

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