Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Good conservatives.

Not long ago I learned that powdered/confectioners sugar is just regular sugar further ground up, and that you can make your own simply by blitzing granular sugar in a food processor.

This is like when Irish people realize that the Fields of Athenry was written in 1979 and not 1879.

Trying not to mention "craic" here.

Everyone knows craic was invented by the CIA.

blaic don't craic

Powdered/confectioners sugar also has corn starch in it, which is useful for certain applications. I guess you could just add that too.

was gonna say, typically an anti-caking agent is added e.g. cornstarch

Did not know this was a thing you could do until recently and finally my curse of floppy backpacks was lifted:
https://www.tasmaniantiger.info/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/tt-website-rucksack-optimal-einstellen-schritt-03-adjust-your-backpack-step-03.jpg

the correct way to wear an airline pillow (opening at the back of your neck, not the front)

my curse of floppy backpacks was lifted

high-quality on-topic thread content

the correct way to wear an airline pillow (opening at the back of your neck, not the front)

This seems completely counterintuitive to me. I'd feel like I was being strangled.

Just now while transcribing the bibliography in Caliban and teh Witch which is providing me with reading for the next 5 years or something . I looked up the name Alfred W. Crosby and found out that the author who coined the term Columbian Exchange was the same guy who wrote Ecological Imperialism which I read about 20 years ago. & tells the story about unintentional spread of weeds and vermin or other small parasites as unintentional; passengers in the ships that colonised other regions .
Also how man's exploration and migration caused extinction events every time they have discovered new lands. I thought it was a really good book, just had no idea it was the same guy which I maybe should have done

& then I find out how many bibliographies of taht book are online already so can just be looked up at any time. But unfortunately not true of all books. & I have just found out a load of books i want to read from looking them up.
BUt yeah Caliban and the Witch is intentionally available from a number of sources. Worth looking through taht bibliography though.
I was just thinking i needed to take the book back and wouldn't have access to the book list again . So could have done that earlier, have a book waiting for me to collect anyway.

Ground stops for flights during thunderstorms aren't due to lightning, because aircraft are built to withstand strikes.

It's actually mostly the wind shear.

Never knew that!

your plane getting struck by lightning sounds like one of the most terrifying things imaginable

Apparently it happens often!

https://wxresearch.org/how-often-do-planes-get-struck-by-lightning/

I can't work out how or why you'd wear the pillow front-facing. I assume we mean those little C-shaped ones yeah? What are you doing if the paddings at the front, under the chin? Letting yr head flop forward somehow?

obv having no path to earth for the current means a plane has to function like a flying Faraday cage - I'm not sure about this and only ever did the basic science of electricity for installation monkeys - but a huge 1 in a million mega strike could potentially arc out or create enough heat to do some damage to the electronics.

I can't work out how or why you'd wear the pillow front-facing. I assume we mean those little C-shaped ones yeah? What are you doing if the paddings at the front, under the chin? Letting yr head flop forward somehow?

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth”

Up until like 10yrs ago I thought a gift-horse was a thing - a horse that has gifts coming out of its mouth. You shouldn’t look in its mouth because you don’t really wanna see where those gifts are coming from. Idk I didn’t give this concept any thought. That was my first interpretation of it and I just never questioned it. I finally had a light bulb moment while reading a novel that was horse-info heavy.

I just can’t believe that everyone just knows the whole checking horses’ mouth thing unless you’re a horse person?!

I thought checking the state of a horse's health by looking at its teeth/tongue etc while assessing whether to buy it was pretty crucial. Meant one saw through whatever jiggerypokery had been done to the rest of the horse to disguise its age. & showed some level of suspicion of the honesty of the deal.
So it would be something you bypassed if a horse was just being given to you. NO money or other form of creditt was being exchanged so one shouldn't be as suspicious. NOt sure what one should be thinking of having to pay for upkeep of an aged nag one had been saddled with. Presumably do need to check health of anything one is acquiring and make sure it has no greeks inside it?

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth”

Up until like 10yrs ago I thought a gift-horse was a thing - a horse that has gifts coming out of its mouth. You shouldn’t look in its mouth because you don’t really wanna see where those gifts are coming from. Idk I didn’t give this concept any thought. That was my first interpretation of it and I just never questioned it. I finally had a light bulb moment while reading a novel that was horse-info heavy.

I just can’t believe that everyone just knows the whole checking horses’ mouth thing unless you’re a horse person?!

like totally assume its based on the idea of gift giving as an act of altruism so the polite response is gratitude.
Whereas I've been coming across the idea of gift giving as a status act, and the gift being given supposed to be responded to by giving a gift of equal or superior worth. & therefore there being a reason for making a gift look more valuable tahn it actually is. Subsequently there being a reason for checking the value of the received gift. & the status of equine overall health supposedly being able to be seen in the state of the mouth. Horses teeth getting annual rings like trees etc

It always takes me a moment to remember that it has nothing to do with fearing Greeks bearing gifts, because that gift was a horse (albeit one that should have been inspected closely)

^this

& gives us the adage beware of Greeks bearing gifts

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Laocoon_Pio-Clementino_Inv1059-1064-1067.jpg/1024px-Laocoon_Pio-Clementino_Inv1059-1064-1067.jpg

shockingly old when i learned that this guy^^^ is the one who coined the adage in question and this^^^ is the thanks he got (being strangled by snakes along with his sons, who did nothing wrong that i can see) (and nor did he! he was right!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz7u-9ZHOgE

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth”

Up until like 10yrs ago I thought a gift-horse was a thing - a horse that has gifts coming out of its mouth. You shouldn’t look in its mouth because you don’t really wanna see where those gifts are coming from. Idk I didn’t give this concept any thought. That was my first interpretation of it and I just never questioned it. I finally had a light bulb moment while reading a novel that was horse-info heavy.

I just can’t believe that everyone just knows the whole checking horses’ mouth thing unless you’re a horse person?!

― just1n3, Sunday, June 18, 2023 4:00 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

when people make posts like this, they need to explain their understanding of the new, correct interpretation! let's get it together, folks! same goes for the pun thread.

this guy^^^

Laocoön: one of the hardest pronunciations for me to remember. at some point i will be shockingly old when i don't have to look it up for the 80th time.

(it's lay-AHK-uh-wan)

It always takes me a moment to remember that it has nothing to do with fearing Greeks bearing gifts, because that gift was a horse (albeit one that _should_ have been inspected closely)

Dudley Moore's father was from Glasgow.

Is that... a thing people should already know?

I think a portion of this thread long devolved into "interesting facts I found on the internet"...

Xps I’m not entirely sure since I’m not a horse person, but I guess the first thing you do when you’re looking to buy a horse is check their mouth as a way to check their health, so you don’t buy a dud.

If a horse is gifted to you, you shouldn’t check it’s mouth because who cares, it’s free, just take it.

Yeah thats how I always read that saying!

there is possibility of cost of upkeep being higher than worth/usability.
& a dodgy donor giving away a useless waste of space which you are supposed to think cannot be happening because of altruism of donor etc.
& you have been given a living thing that you are expected to look after.

I have been reminded of the idea that the public conception of things that make up metaphors is frequently totally disparate from the reality of the actuality of the situations described. That a lot of the world narrative that is constructed by popular sayings is purely fictive and largely misrepresentative, like.

iirc you can tell a horses age quickly and reliably with a dental check, theyre like the aristocracy that way

Yes, it's about the age of the horse.

its because its better to get a younger horse than an older one, even as a gift

but it would probably be bad manners to inspect that in front of someone who had offered you a gift of a horse, a 'gift horse' if u will

xp to put that another way, the mores of a society being based on a set of sayings that set up an ideal that is very different to the actuality of how the things described actually act. But set up a set of ideals for 'proper' behaviour.

Not sure if anybody does check a gift to see if it is worth keeping. pros vs cons etc. Have heard of a number of Xmas gifts continually being rewrapped and passed onto another person on an I need to give them a gift of some sort rather than I want to give them a gift which I'll spend time thinking about and make sure its something they want or is something they don't yet know they want or something along those lines.Obligation gift rather than one done consciously.

I always thought the gift horse mouth thing was because of the trojan horse even though I had a horse and knew about the teeth thing.

I think we're all just thrown by the gift horse formulation. I mean, you don't say … "gift socks" do you? Maybe people used to.

I'm going to start saying "Don't look a horse gift in the mouth" for clarity.

"Don't look at a horsey present's mouth"

I have been reminded of the idea that the public conception of things that make up metaphors is frequently totally disparate from the reality of the actuality of the situations described. That a lot of the world narrative that is constructed by popular sayings is purely fictive and largely misrepresentative, like.

Popular example being cop defenders talking about “a few bad apples” apparently unaware that the expression they are paraphrasing is “one bad apple spoils the barrel” so they are unwittingly making the opposite point to the one they think they’re making

I mean, you don't say … "gift socks" do you?

My sister bought me gift socks a few years ago, thin beige socks with Abraham Lincoln and JFK on them.

I don't know what other socks they could be, certainly not the type you wear on your feet in public.

OK but that's taking gift as a descriptor of a type of sock (I'd call it a novelty sock) rather than just the quality of having been given. I don't think there's a particular kind of horse that is implied by "gift horse".

Modern translation: Don't look a free car in the odometer.

(xp) Apart from one that's been given as a gift you mean?