Fakelore

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Abby Sale
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 10:46 AM

To set the record straight and since I much like the song, I repost in full the following discussion by the great folklorist and broadsides scholar, Steve Roud.


No 1 January 1998

During the lunch-break of the Sheffield meeting, the conversation turned to rivers mentioned in song-titles which were not quite what they seem. For example, is there a river called Dundee, so clearly referred to in The Banks: of the Sweet Dundee, and where is Nancy that is evoked in The Streams of Lovely Nancy?

Ruairidh Greig, suggested that the former should actually be spelt The Banks of the Sweet Dun Dee, because the River Dee was once a dirty brown colour, but I was not convinced by this suggestion however ingenious it may sound, and I cannot find any evidence that the Dee was ever that colour. But his suggestion proved to be just the clue that I needed. On the way home I mused over the problem and with the aid of my indexes (of which you may have heard) and my expert knowledge of the subject of Folk Song, I can clear up this mystery. In fact, the 'Dee' part of the tide is a red herring as it was introduced into the song by a short-sighted broadside printer in the early 19th cent". This can be easily tested. Working by candlelight, take your glasses off, close your good eye, and read the title of the Catnach broadside of the song and you will discover that it should read Banks of the Sweet Dun Cow - and this is obviously what it was originally. This makes the whole thing quite clear, and indeed it sheds important light on the real meaning (hidden for over 100 years) of the whole song. By checking the standard social histories of the 19th century, one can easily discover that when the Rochdale Pioneers formed the Co-op Bank they couldn't afford proper premises and anyway all the decent corner properties were already owned by their rivals, so they hired a room in the back of the pub called the Dun Cow, and their potential customers were thus exhorted to 'bank at the sweet Dun Cow' (I am not sure why it was called the sweet Dun Cow - perhaps there were two in the town and this one also sold confectionery). In the light of this new knowledge one can see that the whole song is about the working classes (given the heroic title Undaunted Mary) slaying the capitalist bosses (the Squire) and thereby gaining their wealth.

The Streams of Lovely Nancy proved no more difficult to my incisive analysis. On checking the original manuscripts, I discover that Cecil Sharp's informant had no teeth, and Cecil himself had a head-cold on the day in question, so it is not surprising that he mis-heard the title and first line, which should be "0 the dreams of lovely Nancy are divided in three parts..". This is thus an excellent example of the psychological folksong. Freud, whose work on dreams is justly famous, pointed out the three-fold nature of the human psyche - the Id, the Ego and the Superego. The song is therefore patently concerned with a young female's erotic nocturnal fantasies - the second line is "where the young men and maidens will meet their sweethearts". Other verses speak of diamonds, sailors, flying high and the "noise in the valley" making the "rocks for to ring".

I would welcome comments on the above, or details of other such investigations for circulation to members of the Forum.

ie, the scholarly forum this was posted to, not Mudcat - AJS

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 04:37 PM

Going way back to the first post. In southeast Asia, smaller weights were often in the form of animals, cast in brass. A brass monkey is about --- ounces. British sailors, if they were cheated in a transaction, said that the shopkeeper cut the tail off the brass monkey. When they brought the saying home to our less than tropic climate, this became "froze the tail ---."

Posh- In early 19th century thieves cant (British) "posh" meant money (OED). This easily became a word meaning best; thus posh for travel in the best cabins or conditions.

Source: Q's own dictionary of disreputable language.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 03:01 PM

Nigel, I have both kinds of policies. Both are from US companies and are labeled insurance (Webster's Dictionary- Assurance: "Chiefly British").

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 01:57 PM

Assurance assures you of a payout at some future date.
Insurance insures that you will get a payout if certain circumstances merit it (i.e. you crash your car, your house burns down...etc any good reason to sing the blues!)

Nigel

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 01:18 PM

Americans never get assurance along with their insurance.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 11:45 AM

I know that, Gareth - I worked for Britannic Assurance for ten years! *BG*

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Gareth
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 10:54 AM

Nice one Steve but -

Sum Assured is only used in Life and Marine Policies,

Sum Insured used in everything else.

The reason being (traditional) is that people will inevitably die, and ships inevitably sink, in the end.

Hmmmm ! is Gareth calling our bluff ???

Gareth

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 10:43 AM

And in the early days (c 17-18th century) of Friendly Societies, the guy who looked after the money would frequently keep it safe by stuffing it into a sock and hiding it under his mattress. To keep it secure and avoid giving the secret away, this always appeared in the accounts as "S.U.M assured" (i.e. the dosh in the sock under mattress is safe"). Eventually, Lloyd's of London picked this up and "sum assured" became standard insurance-speak for the value an object was insured for.

I made that up last night, but feel free to misinform anyone daft enough to believe it, and let's see how soon we see it on the 'Net as "official".

Steve

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 16 Feb 03 - 03:30 PM

I'vw just found this thread and would like to add:
cnap (pronounced crap) is Scottish gaelic for a small mound, lump.
And 'mo cas sin' (moccasin, Indian shoes) is Scottish Gaelic for , loosely translated, 'here are my feet!

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 03:12 PM

That one was in "National Lampoon's Vacation".

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Strupag
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 08:51 AM

Gareth, Haven't you heard about the old aunty who was stapped on to the roof rack?

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 12:14 PM

Mmmm ! Arn't we in danger with confusing "Fakelore" with "Urban Ledgends" ??

Gareth

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 11:57 AM

Cluin: That's alright, just "Cluein' you in" *BG*

Nigel

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 10:45 AM

And true!

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Cluin
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 09:07 AM

Both of those tales, or versions of them, are common all over.

The "death car" one particularly has been around since the 50s. I read about it in an Urban Myths book years ago. Another version of it is the one where the ex-wife is selling the husband's Porsche or Mazzoratti for $20 because he had run off with another woman and sent her a telegram telling her she could keep the house if she sold the car for him and sent him the money.

The "fingers in the bumper" one sounds like a version of "The Hook", a tale about 2 teenagers making out in some lover's lane, when she gets suddenly mysteriously nervous and calls a halt to the proceedings. So the boyfriend starts up his car and speeds off in a huff, tearing off the prosthetic hooked hand of a serial killer who was just about to yank open the car door and slaughter the two. He finds the hook hanging from her door handle when he decides to be a gentleman and go out and open her door for her when he drops her off.

Another version concerns a ghost story about someplace in the southern states where a horrible train accident with a stalled school bus occurred. Supposedly, if you stop your car on the tracks there and turn it off and leave it in neutral, a score or more of little ghost hands will push your car over the tracks to safety, leaving their little handprints all over the car.

Nigel, thanks for the extra info on standardization of distilled alcohol bottle sizes. That's interesting.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Bystander
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 08:52 AM

Back in the late 50's quite a few faketales circulated in the UK. These incidents always happened locally and to a friend of a friend of the teller.
One I remember was how this person stopped his car at the lights on a well known local crossroads and a group of yobboes suddenly appeared, grabbed his rear bumper (they had them in the 50's) and started rocking the car. When the lights went green he drove off as fast as possible and when he got home he saw two human fingers stuck between the car body and the bumper.
Another was of an ad in a local shop from someone selling a nearly new Jaguar at a really silly price. The friend of a friend had phoned the seller and asked why it was so cheap and was told she had to get rid of it as her husband had blown his brains out on the back seat.
These tales circulated all over the UK at the time and I would be interested to know if they went, or even came, from further afield

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 05:56 AM

Cluin: "During a discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, one of the members pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out."
Clearly an urban myth. the "Fifth bottle" is an American standard. The standard bottle in the UK was (until late in the 1900s) 1pint 6 2/3 fluid oz. With a standard English measure being "one sixth of a gill" i.e. one twenty-fourth of a pint. By this it can be seen that there were 32 standard measures (or 16 'doubles') in a full size standard bottle.
At the same time the standard Scottish measure was slightly larger at "one fifth of a gill" i.e one twentieth of a pint. Meaning a 'bottle' was never quite properly finished.

Modern bottle sizes have been 'Metricated' as 1 litre or the smaller 75cl. But measures have become larger at 25ml, making 40 full measures to a litre bottle, or 28 measures to the smaller

Nigel

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 07:42 PM

In North America, poor pioneer farmers of the first half of the 19th century were heavy drinkers, even as they plowed, to bear the pain and boredom of their effort. A common article in the fields was a bottle shaped like a doughnut, which slipped onto the arm and was carried on the shoulder. It contained the worst of hard liquor.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 07:03 PM

My father once asked a ploughman what he had for his lunch. "Pork pie, generally", was the reply.

Onions were genuinely traditional components of the (old-style) agricultural labourer's mid-day meal. Given the wages they were paid, it was often all they could afford.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 07:02 PM

Yeah, did those old farmers really take tupperware containers with chutney and Trisket crackers out to the fields with them?

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 06:09 PM

How about the 'traditional Ploughman's Lunch' for a piece of fakelore? This picture of bucolic contentment complete with vision of Thomas Hardy-esque yeoman knocking off for a bite and a pull on the cider flagon (oo-er, missus), seagulls wheeling in air, billowing clouds overhead, -- this midday institution was invented by an advertising firm in the 1950s. Still tastes good though.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 04:51 PM

Well, this one I got in my e-mail today I KNOW is bullshit:

This is a slice of golf history I thought you might enjoy. I never knew why there were 18 holes before this tidbit. Why do full-length golf courses have 18 holes, and not 20, or 10 or an even dozen? How many of you golfers know the answer to this one? I didn't, until ...

During a discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, one of the members pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out.

Now you know ...

Just like that other fierce pile of bog, the one that says the word "GOLF" stands for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden".

It pushes the stupid clichéd drunken misogynist Scotsman image. All that's missing is mention of hiking up the kilt to whiz or take a dump in the cup for the next golfer to enjoy.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 02:03 PM

The other end.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 12:19 PM

Which end is the short end?

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 08:27 AM

"the short end of the stick" would imply getting a bum deal, whereas "the wrong end of the stick" would imply misunderstanding.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 11:44 PM

I saw that "Newlywed Game Show" clip too. They showed it last night on The Man Show

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Genie
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 11:24 PM

Hester, thanks for the article critiquing Freeman's attach on Margaret Mead. I was privileged to meet the grand ol' broad/scholar in 1963, "great walking stick in hand," and all, and was quite impressed. Glad someone is setting the record straight.

Kim C., I also saw the video clip of the Newlywed Game where the wife says (sheepishly) that the strangest place she ever made love ("whoopee," or whatever) was "in my a**.

Steve et al., I thought the expression was "the short end of the stick," not "the wrong end of the stick."

Steve P., I've seen photos of horses harnessed to carts with a carrot dangled in front of their eyes and the driver holding a prod behind. This type of photo was supposed to illustrate the carrot (incentive) and the stick (whip or prod -- disincentive) -- the classic "push-pull" of motivation.

Genie

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: fox4zero
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 12:42 AM

Polar bear liver is extremely high in VITAMIN D, which they obtain by eating seals, who obtained it from eating fish, whose livers are high in Vitamin D. Remember your doses of COD LIVER OIL given to prevent Rickets?

There are only 2 toxic vitamins, and they are the only oil soluble vitamins....A & D. Both are toxic in excessive doses only.
Eskimos and their sled dogs are or were the only ones liable to consume enough P.B. liver to be affected...and they know better. This is not fakelore.

How come no one has mentioned malnutrition from living on RABBIT meat exclusively? And I don't mean Rabbit Fever which is Tularemia.
Larry

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Strupag
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 07:52 PM

A typical marine radar emits high frequency radiation at a power of around 10 Killowatts while a mobile phone mast has a typical output of around 100 Watts.
Don't build your schools beside piers!

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 12:59 PM

Analyses on a Franklin Expedition corpse showed a high lead content, from the poor quality canned goods carried on the expedition. This could have been an important factor in the deaths ("Frozen in Time").

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Schantieman
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 12:21 PM

RDF is certainly distinct from RADAR now - or was until a few years ago when GPS made RDF redundant. There are still a few RDF stations about, I believe.

Usual theory on Franklin's lot is lead poisoning from canned food.

Main danger from polar bears is when they're still alive - you tend not to be!

Steve

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Santa at work
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 08:21 AM

RDF Radio Direction Finding may well be what you define, but nonetheless it was used as a British cover name for radar well into WW2. The words actually describe either activity. The term radar was not adopted until the US joined in, together with replacing the term ASDIC by sonar. (ASDIC = Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Commitee, or some such - the pingy thingy that detects objects underwater.)

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 06:56 AM

"how would anyone know?" Autopsy?

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 06:53 AM

Sounds like it, Cluin -- how would anyone know?

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Cluin
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 02:24 AM

I had heard that there was a theory that the Franklin expedition had to turn to eating local meat when their supplies ran out/went bad and that some had died from eating the liver of the polar bear. More fakelore?

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Mad Tom
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 01:58 AM

Polar bear meat: Is perfectly fine for human consumption. I've eaten several generous servings myself.
Polar bear *liver* (OTOH) gives you Avitaminosis, hence the practise of Inuit hunters disposing of the livers so that the sled dogs would not eat them. Even so, I've heard of old-timers eating very small quantities of polar bear liver. There is also the risk of trichinosis in raw polar bear meat, just like there is in raw pork.
See also Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami: Polar Bear Nutrition
Bonus polar bear trivia: Their skin is black.

Speaking of Inuit - The Inuvialuktun (Western Arctic Inuit) word for feces is "annak" (or something like that). I suppose it sort of rhymes with "cack". If you say it with a very slightly different emphasis on the "nn", it means something totally different, I forget what.

Carrots: When my son first started on baby food, he didn't care for any vegetable except carrots. He started getting an orange tinge to his skin, so we started blending the other veggies in. We were worried about jaundice until the nurse clued us in.

nit-pick: RADAR vs. RDF
- Radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) uses reflections of a high-frequency radio beam to determine the distance and direction of an object.
- RDF (Radio Direction Finding) involves listening to a radio receiver with a directional antenna to determine the direction of a radio transmitter (not a passive reflector, as in the case of radar). Actually, one receiver narrows it down to two directions (180 degrees apart), so you would normally coordinate with a second remote receiver to get the ...uh... coordinates. Alternatively, you could use a single mobile receiver and move it between readings, but if the transmitter is also mobile it could be difficult to triangulate the source.

Bonus Radar trivia: Early (wartime) radar equipment had only one colour for all the wiring (red, I think) and the components like capacitors and resistors did not have any markings on them to indicate what type they were. All that to make it difficult to reverse-engineer if it was captured by the enemy. Oh yeah - the radar equipment cabinets were wired with explosives, ready to destroy it at a moment's notice. Must have been real fun being a radar technician.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Cluin
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 02:17 AM

The "brass monkey" thing wouldn't work too well anyway. You'd have two types of metal and sea water makes a pretty good electrolyte. There'd be a slow weld. Definitely too much corrosion anyway.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 01:56 PM

Guest Q--'two fingers' is only 1 1/2 oz in the right sized glass, after all. My great-uncle used to say he didn't want much to drink, just "two fingers in a rain barrel."

True or not, I like the 'brass monkey' thing. Case would have been better presented with the addition of the fact that the youths who carried powder and shot from the magazine to the guns were "powder monkeys."

Anyway, my own fav. fakelore is the tale that some local yokels saved a beautiful old tree from removal by a county crew that was about to widen a road by saying that it was historical. They said it was the famous 'hanging tree' upon which the great bandido (supply any plausible Mexican name here) was strung up on. So the road was widened on the other side.

Now actually that's a double-header, because of course now not only can it not be proven that there was such a Mexican bandit, it also cannot be proven that the people said there was.

Re. the origins of folk--hey, there are after all Edison cylinders in the Library of Congress with recordings made of Leadbelly et al considerably pre-1960, so lets not get totally carried away.

I'm waiting for mention of the fact that on his way to execution, convicted Lindberg kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann pulled a note from his pocket that read, "I confess to sinking the Titanic. Signed, Jack the Ripper."

CC

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 01:16 PM

van Gogh only severed the lobe of his left ear, not the entire ear. Half-mad, probably from drink, he presented the lobe to a woman in a brothel. Finding Vincent in the street,in a weakened condition, a policeman took him to the hospital.
Gauguin sent a telegram to Theo, Vincent's brother, informing him of the occurrence and Vincent's hospitalization, and left for Paris.
Vincent had other attacks of madness, one in which he imagined he had been poisoned. Later he agreed to be admitted to an asylum, and was removed from Arles.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Mockingbird MacGillickutty
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 01:19 AM

Jopni don't cotton no "porkies" ! Who would even try to lie about that.
Joni is a Mockingbird-type. Let her retire in peace you mean buggers!
Yor devopted MacGillickutty

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Mockingbird MacGillickutty
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 01:06 AM

In 1965 at Newport (festival) (THE 1965 NFF) Joni (about 17 years old at the time) could not for the life of Bean tune her damn Epiphone 12-String, while onstage for her set. She was subsequently booed from the proceedings forthwith. Too bad. Charly Parker was booed, Mickey Mantle got a taste of the rasberries a few times. Joni! Did she give up? Not at all, went on to marry C. MItchell (Too old to have done anything in "Porkies" except to skip it sensibly) and then she reigned as Ms Truly dedicated Folkie/ Intellectual poppie. Which field of endeavor passed with Milton Okun and Rich. Farina
Stop watching stupid teen flicks and stay home to practice your hootenanny.
Your devoted Mockingbird

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Mockingbird MacGillickutty
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 12:52 AM

The ostrich does not bury his (her) head in sand or any other damn soil. Has anyone seen the photos. Ostriches are not at all shy. They let us view their mating habits-red legged horniness and all. Why would there be NO photos of thie so often called upon image.
Vincent Van Gogh (Americans and French shall never ever get the pronunctiation right) Lost his ear in a drunken homicide attempt by his near-equally mad as a monkey pal, Paul Gaugin, an avid swordsman and invenerate liar who, having stashed the incriminating evidence summoned the Gendarmerie, then lied about the whole thing. Vincent, of course was 3 sheets to the wind, as usual and could only recall sharing a few bottles of absinthe with his so-called friend before passing out-as he did almost every day and night of his adult life. What bloody sorry kooks.
Bats are not blind. Sight , next to audiolocation (sp?) remains a strong suit of the night predator.
Black Betty (Whoa, Black Betty, Flam de Lam) is a stiff leather torture instument applied to the backs and shoulders of recalcitrant Texas slaves. Somehow, emancipation was withheld from these out-of-touch victims due to gaps in the word-of-mouth chain untill June 14, 1865. Texas fat cats always hold sway, especially with the disenfranchised.
Finally, for now, there is absolutely no truth to the matter of whether President (by Supreme Court appointment-type unelected president) can indeed read. He can and does not. Hail to the Chimp
All for now, your devoted Mockingbird MacGillickutty

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 12:31 AM

Could well be D, indeed. It's pretty late at night where I am, and the lore can get a bit faker than usual in the small hours when the deadlines loom. I do try to keep off the polar bears, anyway; just to be on the safe side. And carrots don't have such big teeth.

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,fox4zero
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 12:01 AM

I think it's toxic amounts of vitamin D in polar bear liver. We try to keep the amount of polar bear liver in our Liver Pate to a minimum.

Larry

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,fox4zero
Date: 07 Feb 03 - 11:55 PM

The yellow coloring of the skin from the excessive ingestion of carrots is not quantifiable, but rather due to individual differences.
In carrotinemia, there is actual pigmentation of the epidermis, and if you shave off a sliver of the keratin layer, you can observe its yellow color. Pathologic hypervitaminosis A is almost always caused by the ingestion of large amounts of Vitamin A capsules.

Avitaminosis A also causes marked thickening of the keratin layer, and hypervitaminosis A will cause thinning of the keratin layer and reduce keratin plugs in the oil glands. That is the basis for the action of the systemic cystic acne medication, Accutane. The same is true of the topical retinoic acid preparations. There are other very
potent vitamin A derivatives which will reduce the keratin layer to the point that the skin is moist to the touch due to serum seepage.

Sorry, got carried away by old memories.

Larry Parish

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Feb 03 - 11:50 PM

Carrots are hazardous enough, but be sure never to eat a Polar Bear; or at any rate not its liver. They are able to store very large quantities of vitamin A (they have to, where they live) and that organ is seriously toxic for such as we, though the huskies may be able to handle it. There's even a musical connection; Andy Irvine wrote a song about it once. Not one of his more successful efforts, I thought, but it contained the memorable line

The soles of my feet became detached...

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: GUEST,fox4zero
Date: 07 Feb 03 - 11:38 PM

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Feb 03 - 03:18 PM

Sometimes it's just a name............

I was looking for some other info and ran across several sites dedicated to their love for the "Porky" series of movies. Okay, I liked them a bit so I peruse the first place and find them saying that the actor who played Porky, Chuck Mitchell, was once married to Joni Mitchell. It's true she was once married to the folksinger Chuck Mitchell, but, uh..........wrong Chuck Mitchell. Gave me a laugh but I got to checking the other "Porky's" sites and the ones who gave actor backgrounds ALL said the same thing. I doubt this ever becomes much of a piece of fakelore, but it qualifies.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Schantieman
Date: 07 Feb 03 - 03:00 PM

Oh bugger.

Why can't I ever get the blue click maker to work?

As I was saying,

Levels above 100,000 IU of vitamin A are considered toxic (hypervitaminosis). Loss of hair can occur with megadoses of vitamin A. Excess carotene can cause your skin and the whites of your eyes to turn yellow. I have seen a patient with a jaundice look to their skin and eyes because of excess carotene intake from supplements. Generally, carotene will turn the skin yellow when the intake is above 20 mg per day (about 34,000 IU).

And so on.   A Google search for "Vitamin A" toxic turns up several more.

This one doesn't say what it does, but I imagine it interferes with steroid metabolism in liver cells.

Just eat normally!!

Steve

Subject: RE: Fakelore
From: Schantieman
Date: 07 Feb 03 - 02:56 PM

Vitamin A is certainly toxic in large quantities....

With regards to carrots, yes you can eat so many of them that your skin will turn yellow. One carrot (7 1/2" long) has 2025 RE of vitamin A, which is 203% of your Daily Value. One pound of carrots has 1276% of your RDA for vitamin A. So since you have eaten more than 3 carrots in a day (> 34,000 IU), you have probably saturated your body's ability to store vitamin A over a short time and so it is showing up as an orange tint on your skin. I would suggest you decrease your carrot consumption and increase other low vitamin A vegetables.

This from href="http://www.dietitian.com/vitamina.html"here