Thread: Things that really don't exist, but some believe do.

Ahhh, just as my Scottish colleagues making some of the Indian guys believe that haggis is made of a Scottish animal, called the haggis.

Originally Posted by Hillie

Ahhh, just as my Scottish colleagues making some of the Indian guys believe that haggis is made of a Scottish animal, called the haggis.

It IS!!!! And they have 2 legs shorter than the other 2 that enables them to stand on the hills in Scotland! The way to catch them is to sneak up on them and scare them so that they (in fright) turn around....then their legs on the lower side of the hill will be too short.

All that left then is to go down the hill and collect them from where they rolled down.

Jumbo Shrimp

Buffalo Wings

Good Hospital Food

A 100% "American" Motorcycle being made by Harley Davidson

Zacsdaddy

"Vitamin" K, pretty bad when marketing gets top trumps over chemstry.

a diet pill that is good for you!

i have never used diet pills nor would i ever but i have people ask me all the time for a "healthy diet pill". the most effective way to lose weight is to exercise, and eat less. now there are supplements that help with energy and will help you to burn more fat but ONLY if you exercise. if you can take something and lose weight without doing anything then it is not good for you.

Supernatural entities.

A recent study showed something like 80% of women believing their BMW was front wheel drive... talking about believing in something that doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by GadgetGeek

"Vitamin" K, pretty bad when marketing gets top trumps over chemstry.

I believe vitamin K is real and is essential for blood clotting.

Originally Posted by fccexpert

I believe vitamin K is real and is essential for blood clotting.

What he said

I must say this has produced some interesting responses, though most are not what I had in mind when I started this thread. I was looking for non-existent things that were mistakenly believed to be real based on misunderstanding of names and how they came to be. My examples were:

Canola plants (the source of canola oil). In actuallity, canola oil is rapeseed oil produced in canada from plants bred to produce an oil that is low (or completely lacking) in euric acid chains. The plants are still called rapes, and it is still rapeseed oil. Canola oil is a marketing term.

Naugas (source of naugahyde) were created as a whimiscal marketing ploy. Naugahyde is in fact a platic leather substitute created by coating fabric with vinyl.

The whole thing was started by the mention (in another thread) of neroli blossoms as a source of neroli oil. Neroli oil is actually distilled from bitter orange blossoms. The name Neroli is derived from the home town of an early adopter of this essential oil as a fragrence.

We got a number of interesting examples of missuse or overuse of terms (e.g. massive heart attack) and a some classic oxymorans (e.g. jumbo shrimp). The one real example of what I was looking for was the one about the hagis (or is it haggis). I suppose an honest politician would be another good example, assuming anyone actually believes such a creature exists.

Anyway, thanks to all who joined in and if anyone has any additional examples, let us see them.