Things you were shockingly old when you learned

The etymology of the word 'cockpit' is thus (leading on from a conversation with someone about the origin of 'dashboard', which I think is detailed upthread somewhere):

The word cockpit seems to have been used as a nautical term in the 17th century, without reference to cock fighting. It referred to an area in the rear of a ship where the cockswain's station was located, the cockswain being the pilot of a smaller "boat" that could be dispatched from the ship to board another ship or to bring people ashore. The word "cockswain" in turn derives from the old English terms for "boat-servant" (coque is the French word for "shell"; and swain was old English for boy or servant)...From about 1935, cockpit came to be used informally to refer to the driver's cabin, especially in high performance cars

I can't remember where I read this now, but further upthread...

That 'cockpit' originally referred to a space reserved for cockfighting and was adapted to denote the area of a ship where injured crewmen were taken (and which was often a bloody mess, resembling its linguistic forebear).

― Mummenschanz in a Metal Mood (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 3, 2018 6:13 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe I need to recall the things I was shockingly old when I learned, although re-learning them over and over again is quite fun

Slapstick comedy gets its name from a thing called a slapstick which is used in theatres to make a slapping sound.

And every high school symphonic band's percussion section needs one so that they can play "Sleigh Ride" as written.

See also the vibraslap, which is used exactly once in the score of "Godspell" and then languishes in the closet the rest of the time.

Specialty percussion instruments have a bittersweet air to me because they could someday cease to exist physically. It's easier to just trigger the samples, rather than lugging a cuica and berimbau and surdo and afuche-cabasa around town.

And every high school symphonic band's percussion section needs one so that they can play "Sleigh Ride" as written.

Likely my least-favorite bit of any song ever.

bada duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh DUH
SH-MACK
duh duh

I always thought they just slapped someone's face really hard during that part.

whhhhhhiiinnnNnNNYYYY
CLoP cLOp CloP clOP CLop
SH-MACK
duh duh

I have always wanted to have someone in an Indiana Jones costume, using a bullwhip, for that part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZfasru1i9I

"Specialty percussion instruments"... a recording engineer I know has a closet of these, and calls it 'the money maker' because bands waste so much time messing around with vibraslaps and shakers and triangles and whatnot

ngl, I loved it when bands like REM threw a bunch of random percussion shit into their tracks back in the 80s

it was very much a thing in college rock at the time

the finger cymbals in "In Your Eyes" are dope af

Cuica in "The Obvious Child" too

I found a Vibraslap at a thrift store for $3 a year or so ago. It's in my collection of stuff I used once or twice then put away.

I am pretty sure I have one somewhere. Behind the bouzouki, underneath the autoharp, or perhaps next to the spare bodhran.

I learned what a cuica was last summer when I finally googled "beastie boy straw sound lighten up" and the second result was an ilx thread: songs with the straw going through the plastic lid sound

I tend to forget every ten years or so and google "drum that sounds like a monkey."

Someone around here once started a thread about those kinds of percussion instruments.

Hate that thing; I said this a while ago "(a horrible Brazilian instrument that sounds like a rat trapped in a tennis ball can; Airto Moreira polluted several early 70s Miles Davis albums with this thing)" and I stand by every word.

(Now I feel dumb because I said "Obvious Child" above; I should have said "Me and Julio" instead. My penance is that I will now go lash myself with a rainstick)

Lou Bega's real name is David Lubega

He was born in Germany, and currently lives in Berlin

He is half Sicilian, half Ugandan

He actually sampled 30 seconds of an 40s instrumental mambo called "Mambo No 5"

wut @ all of that, thank u 4 breaking my brain

One of the classic blunders.

Never get into a battle of wits with a half-Sicilian/half-Ugandan when death is on the line.

or a even a battle of half-wits

Chrysalis Records was named after its founders, Chris and Ellis.

There have got to be a lot of things like that. Like Ikea, et al.

See also the vibraslap

I was driving around with the windows down last week. I wish I could remember the song, but whatever I was listening to, as I passed a crew working on concrete with a jackhammer, the jackhammer (rapidly fading in volume as I passed) synched up *perfectly* with the song like a giant, loud vibraslap.

For a long time i used to think that whenever someone said the weather was humid, I just thought they meant it was too hot. I blame this on my actual belief that these people also thought that humid just meant hot.

And if I'm totally honest, even though I now know what it means, I wouldn't be able to tell you if the weather was ever too humid or not.

my simple and probably wrong definition of humidity is if it isn't particularly hot and you are getting a sweat on walking up a hill - it's usually down to it. Then if it's hot and you feel like you need an oxygen tank, then also humidity. When old folks say "it's a bit close today" I presume it's the humidity they are talking about

ooh i like that

That reminds me I have a distinct memory of a colleague describing the weather as 'close' in my first graduate job and me being shockingly old to have no idea what she meant. "Close, close, you know, humid!" she said. She was only a few years older than me but I guess I'm getting on a bit now too.

Anyway, I like Ste's one. It feels like exactly the kind of thing that happens to me, with a word that's close enough to what you think it means that you can go through your whole life under a misapprehension. A bit like Americans and Britons meaning different things by 'frown'.

Ste if you lived in like, Florida or Georgia you would know. walking from dry air-con out into the actual air, the humidity is like an almost tangible wall that you enter into.

xpost hold on now

As I understand it, Tracer, Americans think of frowning as something you do with your mouth (hence “turn that frown upside down”). To most British people it’s something you do with your forehead.

I'm just lolling at the idea of what a brow-smile would look like

There's an old Fusco Brothers comic where one of them puts a fan in front of a closed window, and the punchline is "it's not the heat, it's the stupidity."

xpost https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71jS6IwbL2L._SL1200_.jpg

That reminds me I have a distinct memory of a colleague describing the weather as 'close' in my first graduate job and me being shockingly old to have no idea what she meant. "Close, close, you know, humid!" she said. She was only a few years older than me but I guess I'm getting on a bit now too.

I always thought 'close' was a Scottish expression, I've never heard anyone in England use it.

This is wild

So 'turn that frown upside down' is nonsensical in the UK?

that Chrysalis thing is cute to know!

reminds me of the architect Craig Ellwood - one of the founders, shortly after World War II, had arbitrarily picked that name for a contracting firm, after a "Lords and Ellwood" liquor store out front of their office. he liked it so much that after the office closed, he legally changed his own name to Craig Ellwood, under which sobriquet he then founded a prolific West Coast modernist architecture practice.

Chrysalis Records was named after its founders, Chris and Ellis.

This is good.

(xp)

this frown thing is a stunner.

i always thought "close" air meant when it's like stuffy inside and maybe there's a bad smell and you want to open up a window.

Wait, so what do non North Americans think of the frown emoticon? :( etc. There are no brows, there is no forehead, it's the upturned mouth that makes it "sad."

We are aware that an upturned mouth denotes unhappiness tbf.

loll

Resting Brit Face

frown = disapproval/worry, not sadness.

here we go