Things you were shockingly old when you learned

You know those paper coupon mailers from RedPlum that you get in your mailbox every Tuesday? You can unsubscribe yourself from receiving them (it takes about 5-6 weeks):

https://www.redplum.com/tools/direct-mail-preferences

Thanks for reminding me -- the company that does that in my area is called Valpak and I keep forgetting to submit the opt-out form!

we have opted out of redplum more than once and they keep on coming
it has been years

cheers to anyone who successfully manages to stop the flow

Last week I registered with the Direct Marketing Association as a Deceased Do Not Contact person. Hope it works.

I have heard that the pre-sorted (don't call it "junk") mail subsidizes real first class mail. Still a waste of resources, though.

i have used catalog choice with success

at least until i ordered something and the catalogs started up again

I only just realised that it is genealogy, not geneology.

SAME.

I learned about five years ago that Bonnie & Clyde were real people and not just fictional characters from a popular 1960s movie

(update) Got home last night and checked the mail and saw... one of those shitty paper mailers that I'd unsubbed from! Then I take a look at the address, our mailman had put our nextdoor neighbors' mailer in our mailbox.

I only just realised that it is genealogy, not geneology.

― brain (krakow), Wednesday, February 27, 2019 4:12 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like i noticed that for the first time like 10 years ago, and every time i see it, it's like the first time i'm realizing all over again. the information will not stay in my mind.

i've never thought about until just now and i...think i just learned it! had i been asked to spell it i'm quite sure i'd have done it wrong.

Apparently genea -logy
Was wondering if there was a standard difference between an -alogy and an -ology and see that an -alogy is normally an absurdity whereas an -ology is a science/study.

But looks like the word was coined outside of the tradition and might have been an -ology if the coiner was more aware of things. Or something to that effect.

Probably predates the tradition of using -ology for science since it dates back to Old French and late Latin.
So slightly surprising the spelling hasn't been coopted into the pattern sciences follow. I thought language developed more freely and things like that frequently adapted to existing patterns they predated.

I take it most -ology post dates the 18th century and people like Lavoisier trying to move things away from alchemical terms. & actually trying to set things up as a science, a school of understanding based on empirical research rather than something more mystically based.

All very interesting. I was properly shocked when Google asked me "Did you mean: genealogy". I've always pronounced it genie-ology too, which I now assume must also be incorrect.

Yeah kind of interesting. I think its a word taht's been around for long enough that it predates its current meaning. Found out in a Philosophy lecture in the early 00ies that gravity wasa term that far predated Newton, was thought of as a force in nature before it became a force in physics.
Genealogy has been thought of as the study of ancestry etc way before the actual physical processes were understood.

Stevolende, you're doing good work, but getting into the philosophy of the etymology of genealogy is making my brain a bit grogggy.

But what a wonderful world this could be!

the talk on a cereal box iirc

Canirisology is a narrow field of study

the singer from the 90s rock band filter is the actor robert patrick's brother

8 1/2 was the number of films Fellini had completed to that point including the film itself and a collaboratively directed one.

tank from the matrix is the brother of her from commando

their dad is chong from cheech and chong

Ian Dench out of EMF is one of Beyonce's writers, including Beautiful Liar.

A lot of Late Registration, including Gold Digger, is co-produced by Jon Brion (who I'd only known in a Aimee Mann context)

1990s acoustic ska act Venice Shoreline Chris was a pun on Venice Shoreline Crips.

We really need a "today I learned" thread as well as this one, FFS.

it's certainly more accurate than "shockingly old"

You learn something new every day...so what have you learnt today?

A commonly-repeated anecdote claims that the name is derived from an occasion when King James I of England, while being entertained at Hoghton Tower during his return from Scotland in 1617, was so impressed by the quality of his steak that he knighted the loin of beef, which was referred to thereafter as "Sir loin".

Arnold Deutsch, the top Soviet spy recruiter in 30's/40's London had a cousin called Oscar who started a highly successful UK cinema chain with the acronym business title of "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation".

The original Odeons were the popular amphitheatres of ancient Greece. The name Odeon had been appropriated by cinemas in France and Italy in the 1920s, but Deutsch made it his own in the UK. His publicity team claimed Odeon stood for "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation".

I knew that, but more impressed that he was first cous with a top Soviet spymaster!

turns out the original ferris wheel had nothing to do with ferric oxide and was just built by a bloke called george ferris

William Shatner and Leonard Cohen were distantly related

misread that as Leonard Nimoy and thought well *that* adds to the ickiness of slash fiction

Bob Fosse and Paddy Chayefsky (and presumably their egos) were good friends.

Donald Glover and Childish Gambino are the same person.

also Teddy Perkins

the differences between homonyms, homophones, and homographs

That there's apparently a cosmetic process that extracts fat from a patient's behind and injects it into their face.
Or that somebody would be willing to go through that process.
though I guess Botox isn't much more pleasant.

Just reading a book on the cosmetic surgery industry that mentions it.
Might just prefer to hear it was a hoax,

there are polar bears in russia. i mean, if you'd asked me i'da said, 'erm, well i suppose there MUST be, but i never heard of em?'

I just realized that "about 50 years ago" can no longer really plausibly be referring to, say, 1945, or even 1955.

Yeah, someone I know had his 50th last month and the Facebook image was the cover of the LOEG 1969 issue, gave me some stares.

there are polar bears in russia. i mean, if you'd asked me i'da said, 'erm, well i suppose there MUST be, but i never heard of em?'

― Hunt3r, Friday, March 8, 2019 4:30 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was going to say that there were penguins in South Africa when i read that . Think I had to get off the bus or something so didn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_penguin

and then there was always this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4&list=PLF388BB8ED67CA5D6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4&list=PLF388BB8ED67CA5D6

well just found out taht not all youtube videos work innit.

... tell me about it.

I just realized that "about 50 years ago" can no longer really plausibly be referring to, say, 1945, or even 1955.

This old guy I know on Facebook posted a #throwbackthursday family portrait from 1979. Total Sears studio thing with forest background, Dad with the sideburns, daughters with the swishy bangs, dork son with a moptop.

And it didn't dawn on me until I saw it again later that the old guy was the dork son in the photo, not the Dad (who he really looks like now, minus the sideburns.)

Fifty years ago I was in high school and it was nothing like 1945 or 1950!