Cases that may have been at least partially inspired by real events include "The Death Car" (traced by Richard Dorson to Michigan, United States); "the Solid Cement Cadillac" and the possible origin of "The Hook" in the 1946 series of Lovers' Lane murders in Texarkana, Texas, United States.
Some urban legends have passed through the years with only minor changes to suit regional variations. ==Origin and structure== The term "urban legend", as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968, when it was used by Richard Dorson.
Another such example since the 1970s has been the recurring rumor that the Procter & Gamble Company was associated with Satan-worshippers because of details within its nineteenth-century trademark.
The legend interrupted the company's business to the point that it stopped using the trademark. ==Relation to mythology== The earliest term by which these narratives were known, "urban belief tales", highlights what was then thought of as a key property: their tellers regarded the stories as true accounts, and the device of the FOAF (acronym for "Friend of a Friend" invented by English writer and folklorist Rodney Dale in 1976) was a spurious but significant effort at authentication.
Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981.
The 1994 comics anthology the Big Book of Urban Legends, written by Robert Boyd, Jan Harold Brunvand, and Robert Loren Fleming, featured two-hundred urban legends, displayed as comics. The British writer Tony Barrell has explored urban legends in a long-running column in The Sunday Times.
by Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2007), An Anthology of American Folktales and Legends'', ed.
by Frank de Caro (London: Routledge, 2015) ==External links== Snopes - Urban Legends Reference Pages USC folklore legends archive International Society for Contemporary Legend Research Public opinion
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