Eyes and ears Lesson 3 of the myths course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: the lesson at school .
0 Grandma pushes the carrots across the table: "Eat up, they'll help you see in the dark!" She heard it as a child in the war, when everyone said British night pilots shot down enemy planes thanks to carrots. 1 The real secret was radar, and the carrot story helped hide it. 2 Eye and ear myths are everywhere: square eyes from sitting close to the telly, eyes stuck crossed when the wind changes, glasses that make eyes lazy, torches under the covers that ruin your sight, blind people with super ears. 3 Most of these are harmless, and a few hide a real truth: dim light just makes eyes tired, carrots' vitamin A keeps healthy eyes working (but gives no night vision), and blind people often use sound with great skill they have trained. 4 But two myths can really hurt: looking at the Sun during an eclipse can burn the back of your eye without any pain, and loud music can damage your hearing without hurting, and that damage does not grow back. 5 So laugh at the jokes, enjoy the war story, and when a myth could hurt a friend, speak up kindly but firmly. 6 Reading in dim light or under the covers with a torch can make eyes tired or give a headache, but it does not permanently harm them. 7 Carrots contain vitamin A, which healthy eyes need, but eating extra carrots does not give you night vision. 8 In the Second World War, Britain spread the carrot story to help hide that its pilots used radar. 9 Sitting close to a modern screen does not damage your eyes (the warning began with very old TVs, which gave off a little radiation); lots of screen time and little time outdoors are linked to short sight in children. 10 Crossing your eyes for a moment is harmless; the eye muscles relax back to normal, and the wind changes nothing. 11 Glasses do not make eyes weaker or lazy; children's short sight often gets worse as they grow, with or without glasses. 12 Earwax protects and cleans your ears by itself; doctors say not to push cotton buds inside, as they can push wax deeper or hurt the eardrum, and the packets themselves warn not to put them inside the ear. 13 Many blind people use sounds more skilfully, partly because the brain rewires and attention is trained; their ears themselves are not stronger. 14 Looking at the Sun during an eclipse is not safe: even a sliver can burn the retina (the seeing layer at the back of the eye), and it does not hurt while it happens; use proper eclipse glasses or a pinhole viewer. 15 Long exposure to loud sound can damage hearing without any pain, and damaged hearing does not grow back. 16 Squinting briefly makes the view sharper and does not damage eyes; needing to squint is a sign to get an eye test. 17 Eye tests are free for children in the UK, and an optician can answer most eye myths. 18 Two things happening together, such as new glasses and worse sight, does not mean one caused the other. ← previous Your amazing brain and sensesnext → Colds, coughs and the weather↑ back to Myths This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/3-eyes-and-ears/