Now that you know why we knock on wood check out this video and find out Where Mosquitoes Go During the Daytime: ruclips.net/video/fhmgAelTXmk/видео.html
Only recently I saw it work!!! My daughter tried it and got some good fortune as well. Superstition driven by fear imprisons us but when we are bold and confident something better happens.
My uncle, my grandfather, and I went pheasant hunting every year up until a few years ago. We'd pile in my grandpa's truck and head off to South Dakota. One year my uncle thought it would be hilarious to say this same phrase - knock on wood - while knocking on my head. He did it several times during the 16 hour drive there, plenty of times during the week, and a bunch on the ride back too. So needless to say, I now hate this phrase. Interesting to know more about where it comes from though.
What with most modes of transport being made of wood in the early days, be it cart or boat, couldn't it be a means of testing the structure for termites/borer worms?
the Danish version of this is knocking under a table and saying 7, 9, 13. 7 is lucky, 9 is impotent and is found in a lot of fairytales and 13 is persecuted by bad luck.
Well, it's literally written in stone that ancient Greek's knocked on wood to not let the Dryads (later Zeus) listen to what we say and make it real.The think is was general belief that just saying something out loud can make it real and even when the belief went away, the habit remained
Many new expressions come from modern medias: Film and tv shows. "I'll be in my bunk" for example (Firefly). Although the children game hypothesis is likely the root of the knock on wood expression I do wonder if it might come form a scene from a then popular book, song or play that has now been forgotten.
Thanks for this, but why aren’t there 10mil views on this video?? I’ve always been confused why people do this, and one thing’s for sure - the people who do knock on wood don’t even know why they do it, other than blind imitation (same class of folks who wore JNCO baggy jeans in the 90’s!)
Ha. thas cool. I have a Scottish friend who uses 'touch wood' all the time. i just thought it was a misunderstanding, like those people who say 'no hands down'. lol
I have been thought the story of some kind of extraordinary creatures bringing up the the god Zeus on an island and when he cried out as a baby even his cry was loud to the heavens and his father Cronos could hear him. Now those creatures actually wanted to raise him in secret so they needed Cronos not hearing him so some god/goddess told them to knock on I'm not sure here if it was on some exact kind of wood or just any wood so that that sound would act as a cancel out to the cry.
As in PH we do this when someone say something wrong.. Ex Ben got into accident and someone talk about he will die...So we do this and wish that it will not happen...ext
Now I have an earworm of that 1979 disco song, "Knock On Wood", by Amii Stewart. LOVED that song as a kid, especially at the roller skating rink on Disco Saturdays with my rainbow suspenders and silver, bootie-hugging, shorts!
Wikipedia is a fairly good source actually, nearly as good as Encyclopedia Britannica according to a study done by the journal Nature. Wikipedia also has the advantage of one being able to look into their sources. But as with any source, everything must be quadruple checked with other reputable sources. For reference in the Nature study, Encyclopedia Britannica, perhaps one of the most accurate huge sample-size general knowledge works in human history had about 2.92, mostly minor, errors per science article on their website. In truth, that’s actually quite remarkable given the vastness of their work, as is Wikipedia’s (again mostly minor) error rate of 3.82 per science article. Besides these, I’ve personally encountered numerous errors over the years in some of the best, and most accurate sources for information, such as the OED, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, the Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, etc. etc. Again, nobody bats a thousand. (Aside: One of the reasons we don't do too many medical topics anymore is precisely because the best people to hire for this are generally the experts in this field- doctors, but when we hire them, after running their work through the triple checking gauntlet, we find it tends to be riddled with minor errors because they're a little too confident in their own vast body of knowledge stored in their heads, and not always up on the latest research on many topics they don't specifically specialize in. Even the stuff they do specialize in, minor errors still abound from being a little too confident in their own memories, though the error rate tends to be lower in these cases. Again, even the smartest, and experts in their field, get things wrong all the time. ;-) On top of that, doctors tend to have the annoying (for our purposes) habit of "telling" and then not bothering to explain why something is the case. Occupational hazard perhaps. But on TIFO the "why" is perhaps the most important part. :-) The best I ever found for medical topics was a paramedic who did many of the medical articles on TIFO. He is ridiculously intelligent and had a good base working knowledge of the medical field, and the vocabulary and research expertise to correctly interpret studies, but wasn't so confident in his own knowledge- so he always looked everything up in great detail, but could do it relatively quickly thanks to his base knowledge. Very rare for us, or many thousands of readers later, to find even minor errors in his articles. But as with anyone, nobody bats a thousand and occasionally he had them too. :-) Without that base expertise, sifting through the research on many medical topics takes a ridiculous amount of time, several times the time for researching and later verification fact-checking for most general topics. So we tend to not do them much. The normal topics already take forever the way we do them. ;-)) In any event, the overall point here is that, contrary to popular belief, Wikipedia’s error per article rate is up there with some of the best, even on some of the most complex topics. And no matter who the source is, it's always important to check the same information from numerous reputable sources, observe any discrepancies, and then in turn research the heck out of those dependencies to try to get to the truth of the matter, if the current state of human knowledge knows the truth. And if not, we might say something like "the leading theory" if one clearly stands out as most plausible, or if there is no clear cut leader, present the various theories objectively and let you decide if any seem reasonable to you. We always do this broad-net researching, but don't include all the verification sources as it's not really useful for users looking to learn more about something and the Google gods frown on 50-100+ external links (yes, occasionally it does go that high, particularly on Quick Fact lists or articles dealing with very complex topics like science or medical topics) on a single webpage. So we tend to just stick with listing the core sources that have the relevant information, and particularly favor ones that might expand upon what we said for users who want to learn more detail. (Though, a common complaint we get is that we already include too much detail. ;-) But I personally really like the interesting little details, so here we are. :-))
wow, never expected a response, but thank you :) i was just repeating what my teachers have told me and after reading the wikipedia article it just sounded like you just read it off there but in hindsight it's not like the story would change xD so I'd like to apologise.
Don't apologize. You were right to begin with. Go read up on editing Wikipedia pages. No one with any common sense quotes Wikipedia as a valid source for anything. Sadly, young people are growing up thinking that Wikipedia IS a valid source of information when it's not.
Not only that - we've got a similar thing in Sweden: "Peppar, peppar ta i trä.". When translating it becomes knock on wood, more or less (a very loose translation).
What the fuck? never heard of people doing this... I mean yea you might knock on a wooden piece of furniture to see if it's hollow or how sturdy it is etc. but never heard of it being some ritual thing lol. Odd.
I've always used it as a way to ward off something that you said has not happened to you, from happening. Like "I've never locked my keys in my car". If you don't immediately knock or touch wood, you're likely to lock your keys in your car in the near future. Just a superstitious habit.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Now that you know why we knock on wood check out this video and find out Where Mosquitoes Go During the Daytime:
ruclips.net/video/fhmgAelTXmk/видео.html
My teachers used to knock on my head when they said that. I wonder what that means.
you have wooden head? omg. are you Pinocchio???
watcherjohnny he was a blockhead.
Only recently I saw it work!!! My daughter tried it and got some good fortune as well. Superstition driven by fear imprisons us but when we are bold and confident something better happens.
Man, Jewish history is so full of genocides that good luck to them is not getting killed today. That is incredibly depressing.
and christianity is the number 1 perpetrator in most of that history
My uncle, my grandfather, and I went pheasant hunting every year up until a few years ago. We'd pile in my grandpa's truck and head off to South Dakota. One year my uncle thought it would be hilarious to say this same phrase - knock on wood - while knocking on my head. He did it several times during the 16 hour drive there, plenty of times during the week, and a bunch on the ride back too. So needless to say, I now hate this phrase. Interesting to know more about where it comes from though.
I thought you "knocked on wood" as a means of checking the soundness of the wood. The sound being different if the wood had dry rot.
Next vid "Why do us men slap the fuck out of bags of fertilizer"
Always have wood near you - important life advice
Never had to knock on wood and im glad i havent yet
Because I'm sure it isn't good! That's the impression that I get.
I love to touch wood, makes me feel really lucky xD
0:40 it all started with a guy trying to weasel his way to a hand job.
"Touch my woody, it makes for good luck!"
In Polish the phrase is "Knock on unpainted wood" if you want to add another bit of trivia to this mystery.
for good luck? protection? for what purpose?
@@cankhovich1796 So you don't jinx it.
I have always wondered this! Thanks!
I have OCD and I have to knock on wood every 30sec every single day unless I have a panic attack. My finger is very bruised.
What if you get bad thoughts and you touch wood , will it avoid it or make it happen ?
I thought everyone knew the Irish ritual of knocking on wood for good luck. 🧐 ☘️
What with most modes of transport being made of wood in the early days, be it cart or boat, couldn't it be a means of testing the structure for termites/borer worms?
Well in my culture it means you're testing the wood so that you can safely walk on them, especially wooden houses with elevated wood floors.
I enjoyed that :) you have a great TV voice :)
the Danish version of this is knocking under a table and saying 7, 9, 13. 7 is lucky, 9 is impotent and is found in a lot of fairytales and 13 is persecuted by bad luck.
Americans passed this to my country too.
But only some people adopted this.
How about, today i find out why we get morning wood.
Well, it's literally written in stone that ancient Greek's knocked on wood to not let the Dryads (later Zeus) listen to what we say and make it real.The think is was general belief that just saying something out loud can make it real and even when the belief went away, the habit remained
This fool literally just typed in “knock on wood” on google-images haha.
The Irish version is the one that I know.
well, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
Many new expressions come from modern medias: Film and tv shows. "I'll be in my bunk" for example (Firefly). Although the children game hypothesis is likely the root of the knock on wood expression I do wonder if it might come form a scene from a then popular book, song or play that has now been forgotten.
It's also for disturbing lizards laughing
0:39 AYO???
Thanks for this, but why aren’t there 10mil views on this video?? I’ve always been confused why people do this, and one thing’s for sure - the people who do knock on wood don’t even know why they do it, other than blind imitation (same class of folks who wore JNCO baggy jeans in the 90’s!)
Ha. thas cool. I have a Scottish friend who uses 'touch wood' all the time. i just thought it was a misunderstanding, like those people who say 'no hands down'. lol
I have been thought the story of some kind of extraordinary creatures bringing up the the god Zeus on an island and when he cried out as a baby even his cry was loud to the heavens and his father Cronos could hear him. Now those creatures actually wanted to raise him in secret so they needed Cronos not hearing him so some god/goddess told them to knock on I'm not sure here if it was on some exact kind of wood or just any wood so that that sound would act as a cancel out to the cry.
Germans also say knock on wood and I am told that the French say rub wood. I understand how dangerous this is to say in a comment.
I've always thought that this seemed too easy. I mean, if knocking on wood was all it took to have good luck, wouldn't everyone be lucky all the time?
only if the spirits smile upon you
I thought it was only in my country
Wood...knock on wood sounds bad, like giving wood
I must have pissed off 1 powerful Nymph
Knock three times on wood after mentioning good fortune so evil spirits won't ruin it
As in PH we do this when someone say something wrong.. Ex Ben got into accident and someone talk about he will die...So we do this and wish that it will not happen...ext
Now I have an earworm of that 1979 disco song, "Knock On Wood", by Amii Stewart. LOVED that song as a kid, especially at the roller skating rink on Disco Saturdays with my rainbow suspenders and silver, bootie-hugging, shorts!
I just knocked on my WOOD, but it was not on a tree!!! I knock by wood at least daily!
0:00 OMG MOBY RICH!!!!!!!!!
so you literally knock on wood
If you knock on simulated wood finish do get simulated luck?
Wikipedia is not a source
Somebody had a read at usingsources.fas.harvard.edu i'm guessing :)
Wikipedia is a fairly good source actually, nearly as good as Encyclopedia Britannica according to a study done by the journal Nature. Wikipedia also has the advantage of one being able to look into their sources. But as with any source, everything must be quadruple checked with other reputable sources. For reference in the Nature study, Encyclopedia Britannica, perhaps one of the most accurate huge sample-size general knowledge works in human history had about 2.92, mostly minor, errors per science article on their website. In truth, that’s actually quite remarkable given the vastness of their work, as is Wikipedia’s (again mostly minor) error rate of 3.82 per science article.
Besides these, I’ve personally encountered numerous errors over the years in some of the best, and most accurate sources for information, such as the OED, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, the Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, etc. etc. Again, nobody bats a thousand.
(Aside: One of the reasons we don't do too many medical topics anymore is precisely because the best people to hire for this are generally the experts in this field- doctors, but when we hire them, after running their work through the triple checking gauntlet, we find it tends to be riddled with minor errors because they're a little too confident in their own vast body of knowledge stored in their heads, and not always up on the latest research on many topics they don't specifically specialize in. Even the stuff they do specialize in, minor errors still abound from being a little too confident in their own memories, though the error rate tends to be lower in these cases. Again, even the smartest, and experts in their field, get things wrong all the time. ;-) On top of that, doctors tend to have the annoying (for our purposes) habit of "telling" and then not bothering to explain why something is the case. Occupational hazard perhaps. But on TIFO the "why" is perhaps the most important part. :-)
The best I ever found for medical topics was a paramedic who did many of the medical articles on TIFO. He is ridiculously intelligent and had a good base working knowledge of the medical field, and the vocabulary and research expertise to correctly interpret studies, but wasn't so confident in his own knowledge- so he always looked everything up in great detail, but could do it relatively quickly thanks to his base knowledge. Very rare for us, or many thousands of readers later, to find even minor errors in his articles. But as with anyone, nobody bats a thousand and occasionally he had them too. :-) Without that base expertise, sifting through the research on many medical topics takes a ridiculous amount of time, several times the time for researching and later verification fact-checking for most general topics. So we tend to not do them much. The normal topics already take forever the way we do them. ;-))
In any event, the overall point here is that, contrary to popular belief, Wikipedia’s error per article rate is up there with some of the best, even on some of the most complex topics. And no matter who the source is, it's always important to check the same information from numerous reputable sources, observe any discrepancies, and then in turn research the heck out of those dependencies to try to get to the truth of the matter, if the current state of human knowledge knows the truth. And if not, we might say something like "the leading theory" if one clearly stands out as most plausible, or if there is no clear cut leader, present the various theories objectively and let you decide if any seem reasonable to you.
We always do this broad-net researching, but don't include all the verification sources as it's not really useful for users looking to learn more about something and the Google gods frown on 50-100+ external links (yes, occasionally it does go that high, particularly on Quick Fact lists or articles dealing with very complex topics like science or medical topics) on a single webpage. So we tend to just stick with listing the core sources that have the relevant information, and particularly favor ones that might expand upon what we said for users who want to learn more detail. (Though, a common complaint we get is that we already include too much detail. ;-) But I personally really like the interesting little details, so here we are. :-))
wow, never expected a response, but thank you :) i was just repeating what my teachers have told me and after reading the wikipedia article it just sounded like you just read it off there but in hindsight it's not like the story would change xD so I'd like to apologise.
Don't apologize. You were right to begin with. Go read up on editing Wikipedia pages. No one with any common sense quotes Wikipedia as a valid source for anything. Sadly, young people are growing up thinking that Wikipedia IS a valid source of information when it's not.
see those tiny numbers at the end of certain sentences? that's the secret to wikipedia :)
Wow, I never heard of this one.
This is incorrect. We actually knock on wood because Amii Stewart told us to
I woodn't believe everything I've heard. Like the Bell In the Tree, count the rings to find its age.
It's in the new movie
Knock on wood doors not a tree
i suppose this is an English/american thing, never heard it in Belgium France or Holland...
Not only that - we've got a similar thing in Sweden: "Peppar, peppar ta i trä.". When translating it becomes knock on wood, more or less (a very loose translation).
His he a copy of the other bold guy?
Touch wood no good, touch iron you can rely on.
But your surname is Wood so knock on iron is no good.
@@nathanplayzph3573 😂😂😂😂
I don't... it's always seemed stupid to me.
What the fuck? never heard of people doing this... I mean yea you might knock on a wooden piece of furniture to see if it's hollow or how sturdy it is etc. but never heard of it being some ritual thing lol. Odd.
too a art form....
I don't...
First time i ever heard of it Oo
Hhy do videos where the answer is I don't fucking know?
I've always used it as a way to ward off something that you said has not happened to you, from happening. Like "I've never locked my keys in my car". If you don't immediately knock or touch wood, you're likely to lock your keys in your car in the near future. Just a superstitious habit.
5000ty view!!
As an American I have literally never knocked on wood. My Mom told me that was for pagans 😂 Yall need some Jesus