Things you were shockingly old when you learned

things i was *this old* when i learned em = the term "czar" in US political usage goes back fully 100 years (= even more than me), to woodrow wyatt's appointment of bernard baruch as "industry czar" (war-related co-ordination of mobilisation etc etc, mamagerial revolution birth-of-the-technocracy stuff): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czar_(political_term) <-- less clear from wikipedia and its citations is whether this formula was used immediately (in 1916 or 1918) or only in considerable retrospect

FDR also liked to appoint czars and so did nixon and so did obama -- and it came across into the UK in the third-way era (blair of course lol; alan fkn sugar got to be one)

(in uk i think the papers preferred "tsar" to "czar")

Separate taps are common in Portugal, I'll boldly tackle this binary by suggesting it might be common in some parts outside the UK and uncommon in others.

it was v common in my old flat but is uncommon in my current one

Croisant munching, latte sipping single tap users.

The separate taps thing was pretty standard in New Zealand, though I’m assuming only in older builds now

many, many years ago, a school caretaker caught me drinking from a warm tap at school, and he told me I shouldn't do this because there was a dead pigeon in the rusty old water tank above. Even though he was obviously pulling my leg, it was still a very important lesson!

yeah, remember it being pointed out a few different times and places that hot water came from standing tank and cold more straight from external supply. So more likely to come across dead things in supply that fed hot water. Therefore don't drink from there.

it's just that other countries if you can afford to travel then your house almost certainly doesn't have victorian plumbing

I thought the separate taps thing is a building code standard in the UK, like the giant grounded electrical outlets and light bulb sockets and gently curving motorways. There for some (possibly outdated) solid engineering reason.

Seperate taps, in my mind, is definitely a UK thing. The other two countries I've lived in (France and Australia) don't have them.

Mixing valves are an early 20th century invention, but didn't become commonly used for sinks until the 1960s in the US. I've lived in multiple US homes that didn't have them.

Also don't drink from a hot water tap because it's an ideal breeding ground for bacteria in the warm sections of pipe.

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/aFrankZa_WakaJaw_CoverAr_3000DPI300RGB1000394594-820x820.jpg

gently curving motorways

is this as opposed to ramrod straight motorways, or motorways with insanely sharp bends?

the bacteria in the warm pipe kills and eats the bacteria from all the dead pigeons *slaps roof of header tank for meme purposes*

Also don't drink from a hot water tap because it's an ideal breeding ground for bacteria in the warm sections of pipe.

This is why I let the hot water run until it's 100°C and then proceed to drink from it.

I assume the main alternative is to have a single outlet with separate hot and cold controls

It's one handle. All the way to the left is hot. Pointing it to 10 o'clock is kinda hot. Straight up is warm, and the same positions to the right give you the same kind of cold water.

Unless you're talking about shower knobs, in which case, yeah, your guess is as good as mine.

I've mentioned it before but at work the two kitchens on our floor each had mixer taps but they were mounted on different sides of the sink. so pulling the handle all the way towards you got freezing cold water in the one kitchen but boiling hot in the other.

also must point out that a lot of the cold water also comes from a feed tank, see that episode of Fawlty Towers. kitchen tap (and toilet cisterns!) are generally rising main and potable

“Mixer tap” is the kind of phrase I imagine Alan Partridge murmuring approvingly when touring a prospective rental

Change of topic, sorry, but I only learned yesterday that "buttermilk" in French is called "babeurre"

Considering "I speak French" and "I cook regularly in a country where ingredients are plainly labelled in French" this surprised me that I didn't know that

I’ve never heard that before either tbh

They rarely if ever use it, is probably why

The French I mean

Never heard that one either, but I am not quite as close to the language as you two gentlemen. Perhaps I can email your compatriot Sund4r, fgti, and see what he has to say. Come to think of it, there was recently another, Québécois, word we discussed recently.

Un œuf miroir. Have you come across that one?

Btw, we tried a French language subboard but it failed. Wonder if we have at least a French vocab thread on this borad.

The other two countries I've lived in (France and Australia) don't have them.

tell that to the two taps with separate faucets still in my childhood bathroom sink to this day 😠

It's one handle. All the way to the left is hot. Pointing it to 10 o'clock is kinda hot. Straight up is warm, and the same positions to the right give you the same kind of cold water.

tell that to the two taps either side of the faucet installed in my current flat in March 😠

Yep, I know oeuf miroir. I just LIKE "babeurre", it's cute. I'm getting into "homemade ranch dressing" so I'm using more buttermilk

I remember bathroom sinks in a couple of my first apartments with two taps, and, you could buy a thing to attach to them to combine them. This was in Pennsylvania, houses probably from the early 1900s.

Which, it looks like you can something similar on UK Amazon.

> gently curving motorways
> is this as opposed to ramrod straight motorways, or motorways with insanely sharp bends?

In the US prairie, for sure. We're always falling asleep at the wheel.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Streeter,+ND+58483/@46.3914495,-98.7884629,8.96z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x52d0ee94ba40fb4b:0x5836a15a6c2f81a5!8m2!3d46.657026!4d-99.3582177!16zL20vMHlycXk

Sic, you're not really 😠 about this, are you?

tbf my kitchen/bathroom sinks had separate taps until circa five years ago

the bathtub taps remain separate, and glitchy

My guess is that seperate taps were common everywhere until the 60s, at which point all countries other than the UK gradually switched to the single tap. My feeling is that the UK is pretty much the only country left where it's common. For reasons unknown.

https://em-content.zobj.net/thumbs/320/samsung/45/angry-face_1f620.png

classic sic

classic sic

does seem a bit predictable

Consensus amongst my Portuguese friends living in London is we've seen more single taps in the UK than back home.

It's also agreed that double taps is somewhat old fashioned but it was still the default for us in the 90's and I'd imagine we're prob not the only ones so "rest of the world got rid of it in the 60's" feels chronologically off.

Hmmm. I've been going to Lisbon regularly since 1990 but I have to say the status of that great city's taps has never been top of mind. But I think I hold by my feeling that in 2023 at least, the only developed country where seperate taps seems a relatively normal state of affairs is the UK.

certainly grew up with both combines valve taps and two taps in Philadelphia and its suburbs, but the houses are old here, which might explain

I work in three university buildings in London, the main one has shiny new mixer taps, the other two still have little sinks with two taps. the AC in all three buildings is laughable, as are the electrics. on the plus side I found a room with an old OHP machine the other week, psyched to try it out now.

In the late 80s I had a lecturer who had a frame with a long reel of acetate and a takeup spool. She clipped it on the overhead projector and wrote her lecture notes in a continuous stream, had the whole course on there and would occasionally wind it back to revisit earlier points.

baller move

My childhood bathroom sink (built 1980) had two taps/faucets. Still does! I think I see double taps/faucets all over the place, really, maybe it's ultimately just a style/choice/preference/affectation.

I had heard you let the water run for a bit before drinking not because of bacteria but because of the potential for lead (and nickel) contamination; the longer it's been sitting around (warm) the more lead it might get from the pipes, if you have lead pipes around.

Actually, come to think of it, the bathrooms in my current house all have two taps, lol. Wait, are we talking taps or faucets? One faucet, two taps. Is faucet vs. tap a regional distinction?

Tap is UK English, faucet is American English

But I assume we’re talking about two separate streams of water - not 2 taps/1 flow

OK, so we're talking one tap/stream/faucet for hot, one tap/stream/faucet for cold? In which case, no, I don't recall seeing that too often, maybe more often in bathtubs than in sinks. I do think my sister (in the UK) has a powder room with two taps/faucets, but it's a pretty old house.

I think you just described the same thing I did yesterday. One outlet, 2 controls. UK style is 2 separate water releasing units, one hot, one cold. So I think you are stuck mixing heats in the receptacle, sink or whatever rather than as it comes out of the outlet. So you can see why it would be something people would progress away from

which should have come with an xp since you just described the difference. But I was typing while holdiong my stereo which is in the way but has hopefully just been corrected a bit

So does that mean one outlet that only releases water at its hottest and the other water at its coldest? Must be uncomfortable to wash your face/hands!

that's what the basin and plug are for.