Things you were shockingly old when you learned

i can't refrain from posting a joni lyric, a great song, it must be her longest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgQNLEDAaWs

I dream paprika plains
Vast and bleak and God forsaken
Paprika plains
And a turquoise river snaking

paprika plains is my sister, btw.

Lol

cosine

she look intersting

xp
No, sister.

Is arugula safe to eat

That Wavy Gravy got his nickname from B.B. King.

That B0r1s J0hn$0n is apparently known to those close to him as Al (his real first name being Alexander), a (possible) fact that has clouded my enjoyment of U.S. Maple forevermore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=n4QgKaUoewc

i learnt today that the arrow next to the petrol pump sign of the fuel gauge indicates on which side of the car the tank is.

That's normally the first thing listen on these threads
Things you were shockingly old when you learned

That
vs. is for Septics
vs is for Britishes

Interesting. Canadian Oxford Dictionary says "vs."

I (British) was taught a long time ago that a dot at the end of an abbreviation was needed only if letters were missing there - i.e. only needed if the last letter of the abbr. is not the last letter of the full word. So "abbr.", "co.", "pop." etc., but not "Dr", "Ltd", "vs" etc. Probably only the opinion of that particular teacher, but it's stayed with me.

Seems about right, I mean it's trad. arr., for instance, obv. trad arr is for disgusting savages.

get these ugly spots off my page

I actually prefer the British rule there ("Mr" > "Mr.") but Canadian style seems to side with the Yanks on this one. Maybe we just want to use the maximum number of characters so we double "l"s and throw in "o"s before "ur" but also add in these periods after abbreviations and use double quotes instead of single.

Heh, turns out we're maximalists at heart.

I guess we're actually throwing in "u"s in the middle of "or".

I thought the original way to spell things had the u for whatever historic etymological reasons and the Americans just got rid of them cos they wanted to simplify whatever spelling.

I am a minimalist and prefer the American chili, aluminum and erbs. I do like my 'u's tho

Yeah it was Noah Webster xpost

also famously tried to get rid of the 'k' in 'knee'

Yeah, didn't mean to suggest that the US spellings came first.

Calling the last letter "zee": was that Webster too?

Does anybody call Billy Gibbons famous band by its English pronunciation?

That very question was posed in the classic 1992 book, Wayne's World: Extreme Close-Up.

I haven't in the past, but I will from now on.

the way I understood it was that English just didn't have standard spelling when the USA became independent and the UK and USA just standardised differently, but at around the same time, so neither spelling predates the other. and UK English went with "u"s because French was seen as posh and therefore better or something

zee is pre-webster (earliest printed appearance in a 1677 spelling book)* but NW gave it his seal (s/b seel)of approval and it then landed solidly and began to spread. sesame street took it wide.

zed derives from french zede (from greek zeta); zee is assumed to be "well we say bee, dee, tee etc so it must be zee

*not sure if book wz UK or US but either way this aurely means it wz said "zee" in the uk in 1677 then also (as well as "zed"): in fact the diff might be a class thing (only posh ukanians know greek)

"Other pronunciations of “z” you might hear in the English speaking world include: zod, zad, zard, ezod, izzard, and uzzard"

tag yrself

Does anyone other than Scottish people say jy /dʒaɪ/ for 'J' anymore?

xp ps all those facts are from here: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/10/why-do-the-british-pronounce-z-as-zed/

i omitted that the varient of the sesame street alphabet song adapted to affirm zed over zee switches the coda as follows

out: know you know your ABCs, won't you wing a long with me
in: here's some sugar for your bread, eat it all up before you're dead

I found out today (though I'm not shocked), that the snow leopard is also known as the 'ounce', believed to be from from lynx -> lonce -> l'once

P sure it was "zed" on Canadian Sesame Street. Was there no UK version?

famous rapper dʒaɪzed

YYZ by Rush is pronounced y-y-zed as far as I know, the Canucks clearly know what's up

there is a bone called a hyoid bone that is in your neck, and it has no points of articulation with other bones.

that's what they want you to think

'Ounce' is a cryptic crossword staple.

cf the Latin name pantera uncia (prev. uncia uncia, it's got a good beat to it)

fun (?) fact (?): smaller wildcat the oncilla's name is derived from "ounce", a little snow leopard, but the ocelot's name is apparently thought to come from the Aztec and thus be unrelated to oncilla, even though both the name and the cat look p. similar to me

I saw an oncilla last week (in a zoo, I'm afraid) and I <3 them all

To curry Favel.
as an act of obseqience to royalty people used to go off and groom a mythical horse apparently.
BUt the mythology behind Favel fell out of circulation so people replaced the name with the word favour.

that's a great one!

Is it too late to go back?

I discovered this recently but was just reminded that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a total Sherlock-head and wrote a latter-day Holmes novel.

Yes! My dad is also a Sherlock head and has commiserated with Kareem on several occasions.

kareem is an extremely interesting guy

He wrote one of the new Veronica Mars episodes.

elementary, my dear Colasanto