Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Harry Dean Stanton (born 1926) dated Rebecca de Mornay (b 1959) in early 80s wtf

I'm hardly one to talk considering how I'm in love with a friend of mine who's 27 years my senior, but wow, my late mom and I had the exact same age gap as Stanton and de Mornay!

As for bagged milk, that's a common "look at how weird is the eastern half of Canada"-ism that I find oddly coincidental considering that part of Canada is currently celebrating their very first NBA championship victory. What I find TRULY interesting are the recent tidbits about English history, especially since I only just recently learned about how a large section of the country was once under Danish control (the "Danelaw"). This kind of knowledge is vital to me considering how hardcore I've realized my Anglophilia to be.

that Albert Pierrepoint was from Clayton West, Huddersfield - although someone might have told me this before and I'd forgot it. I suppose the big clue that he was from Yorkshire is in the fact that he resigned after the ministry of justice tried to diddle him out of £14 for a no show fee when some child killing nonce got a last minute reprieve! He seems like a thoroughly grim character, but kudos to him for making a killing at the Nuremberg Trials.

£14 was worth more then! like about £16 in today's money

I wanted to run my own business so that I should be under no obligation when I took time off. ... I could take a three o'clock plane from Dublin after conducting an execution there and be opening my bar without comment at half past five.

That 'dicey' refers to a throw of the die rather than the act of cutting something into small cubes.

i.e. dicing with death

when pom first put that i was a bit surprised then interested in how ppl might come at english and its many sudden weirdnesses from the outside

but lol with tracer's post i was like "woah! dicing with death is like gambling by throwing dice??!" -- which yes i kind of knew if i sat down and thought about it (i am a professional sub-editor, i know from words and shit), except my brain's shortcut has since forever been the idea of dicing with death as running through high-speed traffic and the cars and lorries slicing ruthlessly past you, viz like the knife kind of dicing (except vehicular)

These belated realizations occur to me in all languages tbf so it's not just a function of being ESL.

Somewhat hilariously in retrospect, I would always view 'dicey' as the risk of getting diced.

It also took me ages to realize that a rainbow is a bow of rain.

i like also the idea that one might be cheerfully doing some prep work on a well-lit kitchen island across from the grim reaper, who is giving you pro tips from his experience in cutting things

His hourglass in his hand his scythe by his side
The master Death he dices them on

It took me ages to realise the bow in rainbow was of the 'and arrow' kind rather than the 'decorative with multiple loops' - and now that I've said that I'm only mostly certain I'm right.

Genesis 9:8-17 King James Version (KJV)

8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

https://dmldyd99home.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/122648375.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxl4MGRwjWo

there's a fucking windmill in brixton

The vowel sound that people from France use in "bien", "matin", or "demain" is completely different from the Canadian vowel and closer to the vowel in "un", such that a Parisian "vin" sounds more like "vent" to my ears. Only learned that in the past week.

https://forvo.com/word/matin/#fr
https://forvo.com/word/vin/#fr

That molybdenum is not called/spelled molybendum

Nor does the standard French accent distinguish 'brun' from 'brin'.

xp

whaaaat no

It's a well-documented shift. Unless you live in the South, in which case it's still very much in effect.

Many elevators, especially Otis elevators, ding once when going up and twice when going down, to aid blind users.

one of those things that's just been happening your whole life but you might never consciously register

recently the card readers on the train here changed from just beeping once regardless to beeping once when entering and twice when leaving, and the change made me very confused but I wasn't positive why at first until I confirmed with someone else that it had indeed changed

I only discovered recently that the textured surfaces you get on some pavements is called tactile paving, and it's an aid for the visually impaired.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Tactile_paving%2C_with_obstructions.jpg/220px-Tactile_paving%2C_with_obstructions.jpg

Apart from that one because someone's blocked it.

The first time I ordered a round of drinks in a pub that included a pint of Guinness, I asked for the Guinness last. The barman got shirty with me because I should have asked for the Guinness first because it takes more time to pour from the tap (you have to let it settle or some such). I had no idea.

That's only "shockingly old" if you've never ordered, drunk or seen Guinness before.

(only "seen" is meant to be faintly snarky there! this is totally reasonable not to know if one doesn't order stouts. obv I agree with you that you're a giant dumbass if you do drink Guinness all the time)

how fucking long does it take to order a round of drinks

If you say "Guinness" first, the barperson can start gently pouring that while listening to the rest of your order, let it set while they pour the other drinks, then either deliver a perfectly settled and drinkable beer such that all members of your party can cheers, clink and drink at the same time, or clumsily top up the glass if an erroneous tilt had inadvertently shortchanged you at first.

it's nagl for the barman to have gotten shirty in practice, but the attitude presumably originates from customer-minded consideration and has just degraded over years or during a stressful shift

i just learned that the two-stage pouring of guinness has been unnecessary for decades and still exists only as a marketing ploy.

I'm curious as to where you learned that, and what 'unnecessary' mean there.

it's called the cascade. I would get shirty with bar patrons who would order one drink at a time (out of a 5 drink round or such). It's a lot of extra labor and waste of time to do that so I would try to only take their order if they were completely ready.

The distress call “mayday” = French “m’aidez,” “help me”

xxp from wikipedia:

Before the 1960s, when Guinness adopted the current system of delivery using a nitrogen/carbon dioxide gas mixture, all beer leaving the brewery was cask-conditioned. Casks newly delivered to many small pubs were often nearly unmanageably frothy, but cellar space and rapid turnover demanded that they be put into use before they could sit for long enough to settle down. As a result, a glass would be part filled with the fresh, frothy beer, allowed to stand a minute, and then topped up with beer from a cask that had been pouring longer and had calmed down a bit.[71] With the move to nitrogen gas dispense in the 1960s, it was felt important to keep the two-stage pour ritual in order to bring better consumer acceptance of the modern nitrogen-based delivery. As Guinness has not been cask-conditioned for decades, the two-stage pour has been labeled a marketing ploy that does not actually affect the beer's taste.[72]

Arthur is an aardvark not a mouse

xp it's still necessary to pull a pint of Guinness though!

comes in a keg i thought?

The distress call “mayday” = French “m’aidez,” “help me”

wrong French to boot, it should be aidez-moi

Indeed. But it's actually short for '(venez) m'aider' or '(viens) m'aider'.

That the right and left wing delineation of politics comes from seating arrangements in the French Parliament during the French Revolution.

Americans pronounce 'jaguar' as 'Jagwa' or something

Pretty much, except the 'r' isn't silent (rhotic English and all that).

Jagwaaaar

OK, wow, I just listened to UK and Australian pronunciations of "jaguar" on Forvo. That one I did not know.

many an NFL commentator pronounces it 'jagwire' which I would not recommend

Technically we're all mangling the original Old Tupi pronunciation, so…

OK, wow, I just listened to UK and Australian pronunciations of "jaguar" on Forvo. That one I did not know.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Friday, July 5, 2019 3:39 PM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You're the ones saying it weird, wow

How do you pronounce "guano"

Guay-noh