Things you were shockingly old when you learned

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

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

The existence of the word forecastle.

do you know about focsle?

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

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

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

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.

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

Cripes also did not know that

Well, it's lord in Scots, rather than lord in a Scottish accent.

I don't know what Scottish accents would pronounce "lord" as "laird", although admittedly the vowels are all over the place in Scottish accents.

that's why I said Scots?

Yes, but Scots isn't just English with an accent, right?

no they have a common ancestry, I'm just coming at it from speaking boring old English

I'm just being a bit picky because Scottish English and Scots are two different things - hardly anyone actually speaks Scots anymore, outside of a Burns' Supper.

tbf I'm Scottish myself and don't know enough about Scots, which is why it took me so long to make the laird-lord connection as no one I've ever known would pronounce lord that way. I do have distant relatives up Inverness/Elgin way though, maybe one of those might get close!

I wonder how James is getting on with his Scots...

Scottish Gaelic, Scots an aw

You rang?

Somebody must speak Scots, I have a few dictionaries and a grammar book to prove it. Anyway, I will take it over to the other thread.

Ok so I knew that Toni Basil had been a reasonably prominent dancer and choreographer.

I don't think I knew she'd worked with Bowie on "Diamond Dogs."

I definitely didn't know she is my mother's age (born 1943) which would make her about 31 in 1974 and 38 in 1981.

And finding out that "Mickey" is actually a cover was also a surprise.

Carry on, make of that what you will.

She was also in Easy Rider.

and Five Easy Pieces

and Head

None of these pieces of information would have made much impression on 11-year-old me, and I confess I didn't give her much thought in the intervening 40 years.

She was also in Elvis' Viva Las Vegas (1964), and "...she was assistant choreographer and a dancer on the 1964 concert film The T.A.M.I. Show (Teen-Age Music International) choreographed by David Winters,[8] which featured fellow dancer and friend Teri Garr."

Only found out Garr was in that just now when I googled Basil.

Woulda liked a version by The Sweet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3JxiB4FLjU

Rock critic Robert Christgau commented on the perceived 'obscene' content of the lyric "So come on and give it to me / Any way you can / Any way you want to do it / I'll take it like a man". Christgau wrote in a review at the time that Basil "was the only woman ever to offer to take it up the ass on Top 40 radio." However, Basil adamantly denies this: "NO! That's ridiculous. People read shit into everything. It's not about anything dirty. You change the name from boy to girl" — i.e., from "Mickey" to "Kitty" — "and they read anything they want into it! When it's a guy singing about a girl, it's a sweet line. But when a girl sings it, it must mean butt-fucking! This is how the wrong foot gets cut off when the doc wheels you into the E.R. Then it's Micky Dolenz and butt-fucking."

1. Davey
2. Mickey
3. Peter
4. Mike

featured fellow dancer and friend Teri Garr."

I think Garr was in like nine Elvis movies

Yeah, I read that too after posting, when I followed the wiki link for her.

this is more "term i recently heard that now i use all the time": "tripper trap". good if burner culture is in your backyard.

Woulda liked a version by The Sweet

I am shockingly old to be learning this was a Chinnichap song.

Rock critic Robert Christgau commented on the perceived 'obscene' content of the lyric "So come on and give it to me / Any way you can / Any way you want to do it / I'll take it like a man". Christgau wrote in a review at the time that Basil "was the only woman ever to offer to take it up the ass on Top 40 radio." However, Basil adamantly denies this: "NO! That's ridiculous. People read shit into everything. It's not about anything dirty. You change the name from boy to girl" — i.e., from "Mickey" to "Kitty" — "and they read anything they want into it! When it's a guy singing about a girl, it's a sweet line. But when a girl sings it, it must mean butt-fucking! This is how the wrong foot gets cut off when the doc wheels you into the E.R. Then it's Micky Dolenz and butt-fucking."
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), woensdag 15 maart 2023 17:49

actually think the line is much eh... racier in the male "Kitty" version.

either way, this is as racy as Racey came: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmSW3CuhZyc

Toni's protestation is not convincing. Literally everyone I knew understood that line at the time as an offer of anal sex.

i have never had that thought in my life, nor heard of it being a thing before these posts...

nor I, but the Racey version has the same lyric except it’s “any time you wanna do it, I’ll take it like a man” which Basil’s version changes to “any way”, so …

"Any way you want to do it?" C'mon, man.

Does Steve Perry get these letters?

All night, every night

this is Tom Breihan's Number Ones column about "Mickey": https://www.stereogum.com/2088588/the-number-ones-toni-basils-mickey/columns/the-number-ones/

he describes it as "a chirpy, revved-up novelty that a whole lot of people assumed was about anal sex" right in the opening paragraph. later on he writes: "There were, in fact, further theories that “Mickey” was a song about a straight woman attempting to seduce a gay man." (the song is from way before Breihan's time, I might add, but he tends to do his homework, although he doesn't expand on it or name sources). all of this comes as a surprise (and even shock) to many (though not all) of the (often knowledgeable) commenters.

I can't say I remember this tidbit from its (not all that impressive) Dutch chart run either, not that that means much, but it would definitely be just the kind of thing kids in high school might pick (up) on.

I don't have an opinion on buttsex, just wanted to say the music vid is one of my favs of all time. The choreo plus it screams 80s

recently learned that 'anal' should be pronounced like 'banal'

"Denis" (rhymes with "penis")

"Mickey" was the first record I ever begged my mom to buy for me (I was like 6?) and to THIS VERY DAY it never occurred to me it was about anything but a heartbreaker named Mickey

Now I feel gross :(

Gross because I was 6 -- not a commentary on varieties of sexual activity

briefly looking at the lyrics, it's mostly chorus and the bay city rollers chanting, very little going on in the verse except the sodomy reference

this verse is slightly intriguing:

Hey Mickey
Now when you take me by the, who's ever gonna know
Every time you move, I let a little more show
There's something you can use, so don't say no, Mickey

definitely some boner reference there

yeah it's conclusively a gay sex anthem