XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: peter@pmoylan.org   
      
   On 06/11/25 13:40, Steve Hayes wrote:   
      
   > I suppose one example of an urban myth, as opposed to an urban   
   > legend, is the belief that was fairly widespread from thwe 1970s to   
   > the 1990s that the product bar codes found on most goods sold   
   > nowadays had some esoteric sinister significance because they were   
   > thought to contain the numerals 6 6 6, which, according to the   
   > Apocalypse of St John was "the number of the beast".   
      
   When I were a lad, the wrapping paper on chewing gum had some printing   
   on it, including a line saying something like ABCDEF for no apparent   
   reason. The number of letters was variable. We all believed that if that   
   line went all the way to Z we could get some free chewing gum.   
      
   --   
   Peter Moylan       peter@pmoylan.org    http://www.pmoylan.org   
   Newcastle, NSW   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)