Things you were shockingly old when you learned

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

He shot defenestrated a man in Moscow

just to watch him die

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".

Tomayto-Tinnitus

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

oooh, good one!

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

The pronunciation of forecastle

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

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.

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.

Horses can double as food of course.

The existence of the word forecastle.

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

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

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

“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

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

“-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

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

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

tintinnabulation!

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

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.