Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (12093 of them)

Pos is Sound Sop!

Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 4 March 2023 01:16 (one year ago) link

as it is De La Soul Day, I just realized Trugoy is yogurt spelled backwards.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Friday, March 3, 2023 4:49 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao, nice find! i didn't know this either.

budo jeru, Saturday, 4 March 2023 03:32 (one year ago) link

That Pictures at an Exhibition was actually written as a piano piece, and the orchestral version everyone knows was adapted by Ravel.

Didja get Posdnuos too?

pplains, Saturday, 4 March 2023 15:43 (one year ago) link

Squirrels are omnivores.

Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 4 March 2023 17:17 (one year ago) link

Queen Victoria was the first person ever to be called Victoria in the UK.

Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:38 (one year ago) link

That‘s amazing. Have also heard that there were more or less no girls named Wendy before J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Josefa, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:51 (one year ago) link

Yes. Fun fact: if she had been born a decade earlier she would have simply been called "Queeny Spice."

jk

I used to work for an eccentric old woman named Christine Stevens. Her husband owned the Empire State Building, ran Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign, and founded both the National Book Awards and the Kennedy Center. She knew Marc Chagall and Andrew Wyeth. Long story.

Anyway, she was born in 1918, so she was 80-ish when we met. "Christine," as a first name, was rare at that time - its popularity is a mid-20th century. She was probably the oldest Christine in the country.

Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:52 (one year ago) link

This seems too bizarre to be true, but it is. He was an Air Force radio operator stationed in Germany. He told me and my siblings about it many times over our lives. https://t.co/yJXi8LZYaj

— . (@rosannecash) March 7, 2023

Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:02 (one year ago) link

He shot a man in Moscow

just to watch him die

Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:08 (one year ago) link

From that day forward, he wore black.

pplains, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:10 (one year ago) link

red ryder, this is the cotton mouth
and negatory on the survival of the premier there red ryder

andrew m., Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:27 (one year ago) link

Always to remind ourselves that Stalin's granddaughter is a punker and lives in Portland

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/17/12/32470B7200000578-3496532-Relief_In_August_she_wrote_it_had_been_a_year_since_she_was_diag-a-20_1458216520231.jpg

Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:41 (one year ago) link

He shot defenestrated a man in Moscow

just to watch him die

Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:57 (one year ago) link

This was several years ago now, but I was still "shockingly old" to have learned how "tinnitus" was pronounced.

My entire life, everyone I knew pronounced it as "TI-NIGHT-TUS" and it was only my wife's doctor pronouncing it, correctly, or so I'm told, as "TINN-IT-US".

Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:59 (one year ago) link

Tomayto-Tinnitus

I think both are more or less accepted, or at least I hear both used

Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 20:05 (one year ago) link

Yeah, I've since read that both are acceptable, but it was still a bit of a surprise to hear.

Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 20:15 (one year ago) link

I think both are more or less accepted, or at least I hear both used

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, March 7, 2023 2:05 PM

Yeah, I've since read that both are acceptable, but it was still a bit of a surprise to hear.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, March 7, 2023 2:15 PM

I can't hear anything because of all the tinnitus.

pplains, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 20:17 (one year ago) link

my left ear 24/7/365 - not just loud live music over the years, but the drum was punctured by a yew tree branch, and I had a tropical fungal infection.. I'm surprised I can even hear the ringing anymore

Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:00 (one year ago) link

yore eere has lived a wild life!

i just learned that new zealand has almost zero native mammals! something like 3 species of bat before the māori brought over rats and dogs. that seems like something i shld have known!!

their only other mammal was someone called "saint bathans mammal" back in the mists of fossilized time,

notable for being a late-surviving "archaic" mammal species, neither a placental nor a marsupial

the royal y'all (cat), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:28 (one year ago) link

“tin-eye-tus” is not acceptable and not correct fyi

Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:56 (one year ago) link

The record label EmArcy comes from MRC — Mercury Record Company.

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 22:44 (one year ago) link

I was in my 30s before I learned that the record label K7! is pronounced "cassette" in French

Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 22:46 (one year ago) link

oooh, good one!

o shit the sheriff (NickB), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 22:51 (one year ago) link

Operation Barbarossa - the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union - involved 600,000 horses

Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 23:22 (one year ago) link

The pronunciation of forecastle

AlanSmithee, Thursday, 9 March 2023 23:35 (one year ago) link

always good to come across the word "foc's'le" whilst reading

koogs, Friday, 10 March 2023 03:11 (one year ago) link

tracer hand otm
and while we're on the subject, I try to share this every time it's mentioned near me: it's possible to have a respite from tinnitus by putting your hands over your ears, fingers toward the back (like a "perp walk" hands on head, but with the palms covering your ears). While keeping your hands there, drum your fingers rapidly on the back of your head for 30s to a minute. Lift your hands off, and hopefully enjoy a little silence.

assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 10 March 2023 04:33 (one year ago) link

I remember reading how expensive it was to stage a military campaign on horseback in medieval times in a book on that time which presumably doesn't change much when moved forward to the 20th century. Possibly much easier to transport horses on other transport for teh bulk of teh distance so less food/other maintenance. But 600,000 horses is an expense in itself.
That is just a number and doesn't say where they were coming from and needing to be moved to to take part. But daily maintenance is pretty high anyway.
I think medieval era would be ship to bulkhead point and then overland under own steam. 700 or whatever years later you do have train and plane though not sure if latter would have been used at all. Not sure how they respond to flight. Also lorry of course..
But food, some place to house etc etc is a logistic.

Stevo, Friday, 10 March 2023 07:29 (one year ago) link

Horses can double as food of course.

Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Friday, 10 March 2023 07:39 (one year ago) link

The existence of the word forecastle.

Alba, Friday, 10 March 2023 08:22 (one year ago) link

i just learned that new zealand has almost zero native mammals! something like 3 species of bat before the māori brought over rats and dogs. that seems like something i shld have known!!

also their bats spend more time on the ground than in the air

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2wjXRTd1vU

Number None, Friday, 10 March 2023 12:13 (one year ago) link

Scott Walker did a version of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

Zelda Zonk, Friday, 10 March 2023 12:40 (one year ago) link

Three people - Bobby Bare and Johnny Cash and Kenny Rogers - released versions of "The Gambler" in 1978.

Josh in Chicago, Friday, 10 March 2023 12:53 (one year ago) link

“tin-eye-tus” is not acceptable and not correct fyi

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, March 7, 2023 4:56 PM (three days ago)

wait what, this isn't true, at least not in North America: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinnitus

rob, Friday, 10 March 2023 13:50 (one year ago) link

c'mon, it's tin-ear-tus obviously

o shit the sheriff (NickB), Friday, 10 March 2023 13:58 (one year ago) link

“-itis” is a suffix that means there’s inflammation of the thing preceding it eg appendicitis, menengitis, etc but tinnitus is not constructed this way or spelled this way, “tinn” is not a name of an anatomical structure, and it is not caused by inflammation

Tracer Hand, Friday, 10 March 2023 14:01 (one year ago) link

https://www.etymonline.com/word/tinnitus

Tracer Hand, Friday, 10 March 2023 14:02 (one year ago) link

this is gonna be the "GIF/JIF" thing isn't it

tintinnabulation!

Think Hergé used to dabble in that from time to time.

Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, 10 March 2023 14:07 (one year ago) link

I can't tell if Tracer is arguing for his preferred pronunciation or posting another thing he was shockingly old when he learned?

rob, Friday, 10 March 2023 14:19 (one year ago) link

I also did not know the etymology of tinnitus until today, but it doesn't matter wrt pronunciation!

rob, Friday, 10 March 2023 14:21 (one year ago) link

The existence of the word forecastle.

do you know about focsle?

conrad, Friday, 10 March 2023 15:11 (one year ago) link

i learned that dunedin is pronounced like "done-eden." mostly i had just never heard it said out loud so in my head the emphasis was on the first syllable with a short e

na (NA), Friday, 10 March 2023 15:21 (one year ago) link

did you learn this because of scotland or new zealand or the spring training home of the blue jays

mookieproof, Friday, 10 March 2023 16:17 (one year ago) link

lol the latter for me

NZ, i was watching a bunch of verlaines clips on youtube and there was an announcer who mentioned dunedin on one of them

na (NA), Friday, 10 March 2023 16:38 (one year ago) link

actually i learned it at a Shoney's, I'd just pushed my plate aside and the waiter said "Dunedin?"

I only recently learned that another nautical word, gunwales, is pronounced 'gunnels'. Daft sailors.

Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Saturday, 11 March 2023 11:21 (one year ago) link

I only recently figured out that laird is just lord said in a Scots accent. I mean, of course it is, but ...

( X '____' )/ (zappi), Saturday, 11 March 2023 11:28 (one year ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.