Of course, lockjaw is real and that business about your eyes getting stuck is hogwash. But I was a kid, and kids aren’t renowned for their critical-thinking skills. No one was in a big hurry to teach those skills, either. No one ever told me I had the option of checking others’ facts. No one gave me the idea I could take such questions to doctors or libraries. So I went through life, like most kids I suppose, the perfect chump.
As I got older, I started to understand that much of what I believed as a child was nonsense. But there’s a natural tendency to consider the source. A piece of information that came from the same kid who had warned me of the dangers of saying “Bloody Mary” three times in succession is more suspect than some fact I got from a teacher or parent.
This is part of the reason that so many language myths are alive and well today. Teachers and parents, especially in the 1950s and ’60s, told kids that it’s “wrong” to use such-and-such word in such-and-such way. Kids, never questioning the source or thinking to fact-check, simply believed.
The words “healthy” and “healthful” are a quintessential example. Many people during their formative years heard that “healthy” means “in good health” and that “healthful” means promoting good health and that the distinction is absolute. Thus, they believe, you can say “Bobby is a healthy child” and “Bobby eats a healthful diet,” but you can’t say “Bobby eats a healthy diet.”
But if these same people bothered to look it up, they’d see they’re wrong.
“Healthy: adjective…healthful” — Webster’s New World College Dictionary
