Things you were shockingly old when you learned

I used to cut them in half and eat with a teaspoon

I've never mastered the art of peeling a mango. I usually lose about half the fruit in the process.

Mango - it's about slicing it up first, then eating the mango off the skin, and throwing the skin out the window

It doesn't separate happily from the pit, either.

Cut the mango lengthwise along the flat edge of the pit. Do this on both sides so you have two round "halves" and the pit with some flesh around its edge. For each of the halves: cut a grid pattern into the flesh, then invert the half.

Well, I have learned something today, and at a shockingly old age at that.

Kim you forgot the last step which is to referee the argument about who gets the pit and who gets the cheeks. If you cut it right, the pit has a strip of skin which can be peeled off by pulling, and the flat sides of the seed have been shorn so they are dry enough to grip.

The general trick with a mango is that the pit is shaped like the fruit.

That Pilates needs to be capped up because it's named after Joseph Pilates, a trainer who devised the exercise.

also one of his ancestors was a famous influencer who popularised crucifixes

he was the perfect prefect

tbh I'm still not sure what Pilates is, but I haven't been anywhere near a gymnasium since school. There was a point where I thought it was some kind of US ball game.

the only way I exercise is if you trick me into doing it without me knowing. like if I went to a rap concert and you slipped a treadmill under me I might walk 3 miles and not realize.

my only fitness goal is remaining agile enough to be able to walk at a reasonable speed, so no personal trainer is required here

I liked this from Mr Pilates' wiki:

Joseph Pilates wrote several books, including Return to Life through Contrology

that's also what i plan to use

nothing more shameless than giving false hope to dead people

rip them but i'm different

In a similar vein, I recently learned the burpee was named after a man named Royal Huddleston Burpee.

I always wondered why it was called that!

I used to pronounce the exercise like the name of the Roman governor.

I think the Roman guy would’ve pronounced it similarly in his day though, stress-wise at least

bought sunflower seeds yesterday, roasted and salted. hadn't realised you're not meant to eat the shells

ah yes that sounds similar to my first edamame experience

as to the original question: only recently did I realize that the term "button-down shirt" apparently refers to the collar being buttoned down. I guess I assumed it was a general term for shirts with fully buttoned fronts (as opposed to, say, t-shirts or pique shirts), but tbh I haven't given it a lot of thought.

cheap collars curl up or similar otherwise.

Cheap Trick’s “Oh Claire” (the coda of Heaven Tonight) is a pun on the Wisconsin city Eau Claire.

Misuse of “button-down” is a persistent pet peeve of mine. The “wrong” usage seems to be what I hear 80% of the time.

https://lpsoncd.com/media/ecom/prodxl/NewhartBob-ButtonDownMindOf021.jpg

I did not know until today that that term referred to the collar. Like anatol_merklich, I thought it referred to the shirt front.

I'm not surprised that that's what many people think. It could very well be a phrase that's in transition to the meaning you inferred.

comedy doesn't often age well, but bob newhart records still crack me up

or maybe I just haven't aged well

I feel like an idiot.

The amount of times I've gone looking for a button-down shirt with a spread collar...

This is new information for me, too. I had always assumed "button-down" meant the shirt front. (Perhaps this is why I have also seen this type of shirt referred to as a "button-up" and thought those people were misnaming it...)

First time I saw James Spader button his shirt from the top to the bottom in Sex, Lies and Videotape, I thought, OH I see, he is UNHINGED.

What? People button their shirts starting at the bottom and ending at the collar? Why?

someone out there is starting from the middle to fuck with us

To keep them from being misbuttoned?

The actor Julian Glover is Robert Wyatt's half-brother.

button-down collars were invented to stop them flapping up and down while riding a horse, specifically when playing polo i think.

How come polo shirts don't have button down collars then? It's all so confusing.

i recently learned that the chorus of the heptones "book of rules" does not - as i had believed for about 40 years - go "each is given a bag of tools a shapeless hat & a book of rules"

bummer

It doesn’t?

Huh, I just learned about this poem that Book of Rules quotes.

A Bag of Tools
by R. L. Sharpe

I SN'T IT strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?

Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make—
Ere life is flown—
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.

How come polo shirts don't have button down collars then? It's all so confusing.

because polo shirts are for playing tennis in. hope that helps.

just discovered that Oasis also substantially ransacked the same poem for "Go Let it Out"!

Was just coming here to post the Julian Glover/Robert Wyatt one.

He's also related to Woodrow Wyatt, but I guess that's more widely known

I knew about Julian Glover but didn't know about Woodrow Wyatt but then he's probably been keeping that one quiet.

"The actor Julian Glover is Robert Wyatt's half-brother."

This comes from a lovely interview in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/19/julian-glover-empire-strikes-back-bond-indiana-jones-game-of-thrones-russell-crowe-prizefighter

I would have asked him (a) does he resent Charles Dance? (b) would he have been materially better-off if Charles Dance had met with a horrible accident in the early 1970s? (c) has he ever considered gifting Charles Dance a Porsche 911 with faulty brakes? (d) how does he feel when Charles Dance is cast in a role that could have gone to Julian Glover instead? (e) has he ever considered releasing a novelty hip-hop record under the name Julian G Lover?

Which is probably why The Guardian continues to refuse to hire me to interview people.

Along similar lines to button-down shirt, it took me a long time to comprehend that a fine-toothed comb was a fine-toothed comb, and not a "fine toothcomb".

James Cleveland (JC) Owens the famous mid 30s runner was better known by a local pronunciation of his initials.
Just came across that in Adam Rutherford's How To Argue With A Racist, not sure if I'd heard it earlier.