urban legend


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urban legend

A local myth, legend, or piece of folklore that becomes widely spread through informal means, especially by word of mouth, usually describing, dealing with, or attempting to explain mysterious, macabre, horrific, or humorous events or happenings. A: "Did you ever hear about the kid whose stomach exploded from eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda at the same time?" B: "Oh, that's just a silly old urban legend." I remember hearing an urban legend about a young woman who hides in a chest in her attic for game of hide-and-seek on her wedding day. She gets locked inside and isn't found until many years later.
See also: legend, urban

urban legend

Fig. a myth or piece of folklore that is totally false. That story about the rats in the sewer being as big as dogs is an urban legend. It's just not so.
See also: legend, urban
References in periodicals archive ?
In some cases, individuals create healthy narratives based in reality; in other cases, people incorporate urban legend and folklore in creation in their reconstructed narratives.
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Also covered is the infamous, science-bashing "Missing Day in Time" urban legend actively circulating among fundamentalist Christians.
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With Bodega Dreams, Ernesto Quinonez skillfully switches from English to Spanish to create an urban legend where words vibrate on the page.
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(Frequency), Manhattan (American Psycho), New Jersey (The Hurricane), New Haven (The Skulls), generic university towns in New England (Urban Legend), the wooded foothills of the Rockies (Grizzly Falls), and inexplicably enough, an equatorial rain forest (Peter Benchley's Amazon).
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Reece said: "Within the urban scene a lot of artists are from URBAN LEGEND: performing in Hackney.
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