Pretty sure I knew this but I've just been reminded of it and it caught me by surprise somewhat:
John 19:30When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
― Monthly Python (Tom D.), Thursday, 14 September 2023 10:48 (eight months ago) link
Another one. The phrase "on your tod", meaning "on your own", is rhyming slang, from "on your Tod Sloan" (an American jockey apparently)
― Monthly Python (Tom D.), Thursday, 14 September 2023 11:12 (eight months ago) link
I just found out that Olivia Newton-John was the cousin of Henry Cow's Georgina Born, but this fascinating fact seems to have been mentioned on this very thread not long ago.
Another Cow factoid - not only is Fred Frith the brother of critic Simon Frith (which I knew), he's also called Jeremy and Fred is but a nickname (which I didn't).
― PKD did a job on me (Matt #2), Thursday, 14 September 2023 11:39 (eight months ago) link
The plural of sphinx is sphinges - though sphinxes is also correct.
The great "aha!" for me here re Greek/Latin/etc, when I studied some of it back in the day, was to grok that despite what is the convention in dictionaries of our familiar Western languages, the nominative case is not the basic or default stem that other varieties are inflected from, but itself a derived form with its own case ending, that ending being -s. We think "Rex" is King, as a kind of irreducible thing! but it is "reg..." (with a long "eeeh") that is the thing, and ALL cases had endings added on, such as reeehgis (spelt "regis") in the genitive, reeehgem (spelt "regem") in the accusative, and reeehgs (the expected "regs" parsimoniously spelt "rex") in the nominative.
In Old Norse, where the nominative -s was -r, the word for "man" is really "mann...", but generations of Norwegians have learnt in school that "man" in Old Norse is "maðr", since that is the nominative case, somehow making the other cases (manns, manni, mann) seem irregular (this even thought the modern Scandinavian is "mann"). The fact is of course that the n's of "mannr" are easily lazed into a fluffy dental ð sound.
― anatol_merklich, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:27 (eight months ago) link
KISS bass player Gene Simmons was born in Haifa Israel, his mother was a Holocaust survivor
Not sure why I never knew this
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:34 (eight months ago) link
I remember reading a teen magazine in the late ‘70s, Tiger Beat or 16 probably, and there was a piece on KISS in which Gene Simmons was asked how old he was, and he responded, “I was hatched in 1776.”
― Josefa, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:37 (eight months ago) link
What I’m saying is, for a long time no one knew anything about Gene Simmons’ background
― Josefa, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:41 (eight months ago) link
I did a pretty brisk business in 3rd grade... I would trace drawings of them without their makeup, and then charge kids to see what they looked like
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:45 (eight months ago) link
lol
― Josefa, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:47 (eight months ago) link
it was sliding scale, not trying to rip anyone off
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 14 September 2023 23:50 (eight months ago) link
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/55/Kiss_Unmasked_Album_Cover.jpg/220px-Kiss_Unmasked_Album_Cover.jpg
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Friday, 15 September 2023 00:17 (eight months ago) link
oh dammit
― Alba, Friday, 15 September 2023 06:55 (eight months ago) link
I did not know until I heard him interviewed a few years ago that Geddy Lee's parents were also Holocaust survivors. They made it through Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 15 September 2023 20:47 (eight months ago) link
"goody two shoes" is actually the titular character's nickname in The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, a 1765 English children's novel
She's a poor orphan girl with only one shoe, but gets a new pair when her fortunes improve
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 17:23 (eight months ago) link
omg I just now realized what "Benelux" means after 40+ years
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Monday, October 9, 2023 10:21 AM
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Monday, 9 October 2023 17:22 (eight months ago) link
Liverpool as the UK representation point of the Confederacy in America. THink I'm more aware of it as a multicultural place 120 or 30 years later. But seems to have been well known historically.
― Stevo, Monday, 9 October 2023 18:26 (eight months ago) link
I only just recently learned that the country code for Switzerland, "CH," stands for "Confoederatio Helvetica."
― Bruce Hornsby–Big Stick 3:15 (Eliza D.), Monday, 9 October 2023 18:50 (eight months ago) link
Lol, and we do not have provinces or regions or departments, we have cantons!
― Nabozo, Monday, 9 October 2023 19:13 (eight months ago) link
learned today that mules are donkey/horse hybrids and can't mate with each other
― ✖, Monday, 9 October 2023 23:46 (eight months ago) link
learned yesterday that you won't actually get stuck that way if you cross your eyes too long
started believing that probably age 5 and then went 30 years never stumbling onto a situation that would cause me to rethink it
been crossing my eyes all day, lot of lost time to make up for
― ✖, Monday, 9 October 2023 23:50 (eight months ago) link
don't get stuck!
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 10 October 2023 01:16 (eight months ago) link
Here's one secret advantage to being able to cross your eyes.
If you're doing one of those "Find 6 differences between these 2 picures" puzzles, cross your eyes until the images merge and the differences almost jump right out.
― Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 10 October 2023 05:47 (eight months ago) link
that the word spelled "indicted" is the same as the word pronounced "indited", & the word spelled "epitome" is the same as the word pronounced "epitomy" - in retrospect it seems odd that it never occurred to me that, ya know, you read those words reasonably often but i'd never once heard anybody say em.
― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 10 October 2023 06:09 (eight months ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 10 October 2023 07:22 (eight months ago) link
if you ever practiced doing those magic eye pictures it's easy to do
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 10 October 2023 07:49 (eight months ago) link
the guy who portrayed the "indian" in the village people was actually of native american heritage
found that out approx 10 mins ago
learning all the time huh
― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 10 October 2023 09:28 (eight months ago) link
wtf
holy crap it really works
― Ste, Tuesday, 10 October 2023 10:34 (eight months ago) link
Takes the fun out of those puzzles, but ok!
― pplains, Tuesday, 10 October 2023 14:19 (eight months ago) link
these are two entirely different pictures
― real warm grandpa (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 10 October 2023 14:29 (eight months ago) link
It's how I found the right books to unlock the Ninth Gate.
― Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 10 October 2023 17:06 (eight months ago) link
Male donkey with female horse = muleMale horse with female donkey = hinny (less common, and look different than mules)
― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 10 October 2023 17:21 (eight months ago) link
I didn't realize miniature donkeys were a distinct mediterranean breed until now!
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Tuesday, 10 October 2023 21:46 (eight months ago) link
and can't mate with each other
tbf they can *mate*
they just don't need protection
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 11 October 2023 00:58 (eight months ago) link
speak for yourself. those things can kick
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Wednesday, 11 October 2023 02:15 (eight months ago) link
Sprinklers are actually timed to go a full rotation in one minute
― Heez, Thursday, 12 October 2023 16:37 (eight months ago) link
tbf they can *mate*things you are shockingly old when you haven’t learned yet
― vashti funyuns (sic), Thursday, 12 October 2023 16:54 (eight months ago) link
🧉
― Smike and Pmith (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 12 October 2023 18:15 (eight months ago) link
Male donkey with female horse = mule
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 12 October 2023 18:37 (eight months ago) link
Our gut biome is external to our body, total "wait, whut?" moment.
― Jaq, Thursday, 12 October 2023 19:10 (eight months ago) link
i'm sorry...what?!
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Thursday, 12 October 2023 20:21 (eight months ago) link
I know!!
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Thursday, 12 October 2023 20:24 (eight months ago) link
aiui if we turned ourselves inside out, all that stuff is living separately/symbiotically on the surface of our body?
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Thursday, 12 October 2023 20:25 (eight months ago) link
So...how does it get in there? Is it transmitted from adults to babies (via mother's milk or something)?
― read-only (unperson), Thursday, 12 October 2023 20:42 (eight months ago) link
Turns out...yes!
Each person has an entirely unique network of microbiota that is originally determined by one’s DNA. A person is first exposed to microorganisms as an infant, during delivery in the birth canal and through the mother’s breast milk. Exactly which microorganisms the infant is exposed to depends solely on the species found in the mother. Later on, environmental exposures and diet can change one’s microbiome to be either beneficial to health or place one at greater risk for disease.
― read-only (unperson), Thursday, 12 October 2023 20:43 (eight months ago) link
The internal/external is both counter intiuitive and logical — open your mouth wide and it’s obvious the cavity belongs to the outside world and is not a part of your body, that remains the case all down the alimentary canal and beyond
― Boris Yitsbin (wins), Thursday, 12 October 2023 21:06 (eight months ago) link
Very true. Also the gut and the inner lung surface is very much the largest surface area exposed to the outside world, each about the size of a tennis court if you flattened them out. The defence systems are pretty remarkable but that’s why most infections get to us via the airways or ingestion of pathogens.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 12 October 2023 21:11 (eight months ago) link
Also despite being a biomed lecturer, one thing I was very late to realise is that the lungs are a pouch which grows off the gut tube during development. It’s why they have a common opening.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 12 October 2023 21:13 (eight months ago) link
And of course now I'm thinking of the Terry Bisson story "They're Made Out of Meat"...
― read-only (unperson), Thursday, 12 October 2023 21:16 (eight months ago) link
I love the Leonard cohen lyric about being nothing but the brief elaboration of a tube
― Boris Yitsbin (wins), Thursday, 12 October 2023 21:23 (eight months ago) link