Things you were shockingly old when you learned

so is wry something other than cunning.
is a-wry the semantic root of the word or something.

Since when did wry ever mean cunning?

Wry Fox

Merriam Webster has this as the 2nd simple definition

2 wry
adjective
Simple Definition of wry

: humorous in a clever and often ironic way

I thought that extended beyond humour which would then be close to synonymous with cunning I would think.

Looks like the etymology is more based on toward the twisted

As Laurel can probably attest to, I was well into my 30s before I found out that pickles were once cucumbers.

― UYD: Oxys, Percs, Vics, Addys, Rit-Dogs and Xannys (sunny successor), Tuesday, November 10, 2015 3:21 PM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3 <3 <3 <3

That a Twix is Millionaire's Shortbread in chocolate coated stick form.

it took me way too long to realise that when you get into this cooking game don't struggle with a shitty little blunt knife, get a big fucking sharp knife and a blade sharpener and a mortar and pestle. Tools that make cooking easier and quicker

Yeah my top cooking tips:
Sharp knife
HOT pan
Stop moving the food around the pan all the time

HOT pans are good for searing, if that's what you're after, but high heat makes protein very tough, so it's a shitty approach to, for example, frying an egg. otoh, it can caramelize sugars, so high heat can be nice for root vegetables.

pansplaining

I only eat steak and burnt eggs

(I do actually fry an egg from cold oil after someone tipped me off)

I should add that my helpful tips are brought to you after far too long using shitty blunt or serrated knives and medium warm pans because I didn't want to burn stuff

xp spécialité de le maison

What is this cold oil thing?

It took me until after my 35th birthday to work out why the popular anti-dandruff shampoo was called "Head & Shoulders"

Bc when u use it, u get head, then u brush your shoulders off bc ur a player

I've just this minute found out (because I looked it up) that GOP is a nickname for the Republican Party rather than some kind of government department like I thought it was.

I'm British, by the way

Took me a while to realize what POTUS stood for too.

feel fortunate that I came across the correct pronounciation somewhere online before goofing irl

Up until a couple years ago, I pronounced "pronunciation" as "pro-noun-ci-a-shun" instead of the correct "pro-nun-ci-a-shun" - fucking English, how does it work? etc.

He he, I see...

Is there a head and shoulders pun?

Lord Mountbatten's dandruff?
Royal family member found in pieces post explosion.

Or the naming itself. It's a dandruff shampoo i.e. For the head and preventing white flakes from covering the shoulders.
Which surpasses others by standing 'head and shoulders' above them.

roger that

that Spain isn't anywhere near Mexico

I'm serious

Took me a while to realize what POTUS stood for too.

Me too, at first I thought it was some kind of latin term, like hippopotamus.

olives and ponies still blowing my mind.

that Spain isn't anywhere near Mexico

this makes sense on the level of US ethnic & racial logic but raises a lot of questions about yr previous understanding of colonialism/the atlantic ocean. v curious what sort of image of spanish history you had

Presumably until the US grabbed the massive amount of the West that was Mexico as shown in the last but one Adam Ruins Everything, that territory would have been thought to have been a distant part of Spain. I don't think it had gained Independence before that.

& don't they speak Latin in Latin America?

Mexico became independent 25 years before the Mexican-American war.

Yeah just saw that. Hadn't thought it was independent that early. But 300 years as a Spanish colony is probably enough.

Which surpasses others by standing 'head and shoulders' above them.

Well this part I just caught.

Blimey, Heathrow Airport is massive isn't it? Just looked at the thing on Google Earth and it's just... enormous?!

here is a treat for you:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30479/10-largest-airports-world-seen-above

Seems about normal-sized for an airport.

http://i.imgur.com/WalAFzY.png

http://i.imgur.com/Xai7gU6.png

http://i.imgur.com/UvIQI4t.png

Bigger than my airport though.

http://i.imgur.com/V434GV5.png

If that Mountbatten joke from the other day wasn't as well known as it once was.
It went
How did they know that Lord Mountbatten had dandruff?
Because they found his head and shoulders on the beach.

I think it was pretty widely known at one point. Not sure if it's commuted to any other explosives victim since then. Has it?

i first heard it re challenger explosion

horrible 80s jokes I have heard

need another seven astronauts

That snowshoes don't actually look like tennis rackets - it's just a visual shorthand used in cartoons and as a joke in 70s UK sitcoms.

?

The "teardrop" snowshoes worn by lumberjacks are about 40 inches (1.0 m) long and broad in proportion, while the tracker's shoe is over 5 feet (1.5 m) long and very narrow. This form, the stereotypical snowshoe, resembles a tennis racquet, and indeed the French term is raquette de neige.

http://www.planet-science.com/media/24073/woman%20wearing%20old%20fashioned%20snowshoes_100391027_363x242.jpg

democracy doesn't work

snowshoeing rules

I was well into adulthood when I realized that there was no such thing as unprepared ham. I thought ham and pork were two different cuts of pig meat, and while it seemed odd to me that I only ever saw the cured/smoked stuff in supermarkets, I figured you could buy raw cuts of ham at the butcher shop if you were so inclined.

I know this is a year too late but:

Also in my late teens I learned that when people were playing soccer and shouted "Aussie rules" that they weren't saying "Ozzy rules!"

Erm? who does this, what? You know Aussie Rules isnt soccer, right?

Well kids did it all the time when playing soccer.

Another one, but I wasn't shockingly old but it carried on much longer than made sense: I used to assume that Robin Williams sung in "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads.

What do you think they did mean, if not "Ozzy rules!"?

Australian rules

Kids at my school shouted 'Aussie rules' too. I think it was just a hokey way of saying that hard tackles were allowed.

It was a joke, like if someone handballed or picked up the ball in the playground, they'd shout Aussie rules

the bad guys usually win