--- title: School legends — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «School legends», a lesson of the myths course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Oscar swears a kid at his cousin's school skipped a whole year and nobody noticed. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/) / School legends # School legends Lesson 24 of the myths course of Mova's primary school: 18 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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/myths/24-school-legends/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/0/) — Oscar swears a kid at his cousin's school skipped a whole year and nobody noticed. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/1/) — Every school has legends like this: the haunted toilets, the secret tunnel, the head who sleeps in the office. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/2/) — A school legend is usually told about "a kid at my cousin's school", never about someone you can actually ask; that friend-of-a-friend detail is the first clue it may be made up. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/3/) — Real school life runs on rules and records: the register is taken every day, absences are followed up, and big decisions, like closing for snow, are made by the head, not by a magic law. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/4/) — Some legends hold a grain of truth: schools do keep records, and chewing gum may wake you up a little for a short time; but the scary or magic part is almost always added. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/5/) — To check one, ask a teacher, the school office or the person it happened to, and enjoy the spooky ones as stories, without teasing the younger kids who believe them. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/6/) — Schools take a register every day, and an absence is usually followed up quickly by phone calls, letters or visits, so a pupil missing a whole year would be noticed. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/7/) — Schools do keep records about pupils, but there is no single "permanent record" that every future employer (a boss who gives you a job) reads, and small mistakes are not carried for life. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/8/) — There is no rule that a class can leave if the teacher is 15 minutes late; you should stay and send someone to tell the office. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/9/) — There is no law that closes schools after a certain amount of snow; the head teacher decides, based on safety. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/10/) — There is no evidence that ghosts exist; haunted-toilet stories are told at schools in many countries, such as Japan's "Hanako-san". - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/11/) — Pencil "lead" is graphite (a soft, grey, shiny form of carbon) mixed with clay and contains no lead, so it cannot give you lead poisoning; a pencil stab should still be washed and checked because it could get infected. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/12/) — Teachers are pleased by a score of 100%; a perfect mark is not a sign of cheating. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/13/) — There is no evidence that Friday the 13th brings bad luck, though worrying about it could distract you. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/14/) — Head teachers go home at night like other people; they do not live in their offices. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/15/) — Some small studies found chewing gum can make you feel a little more alert (awake and paying attention) for a short time, but the results are mixed, and gum gives no magic marks; many schools do not allow it. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/16/) — Secret tunnels between old buildings are a very common legend, and they almost never turn out to be real; old maps and local history groups can help you check. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/24-school-legends/17/) — A story about "a friend of a friend" that nobody can check is called an urban legend. - ← previous: [Petrol stations, pools and things that go bang](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/23-petrol-stations-pools-and-things-that-go-bang/) - next →: [Viral facts and chain messages](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/25-viral-facts-and-chain-messages/) - ↑ back to [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/)