I thought penguins were as tall as humans until that march of the penguins movie
― I CRIED (G00blar), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 10:56 (fifteen years ago) link
"that SHIFT + 6 = ^. I think I figured it out a month or so ago. I always wondered how people got that character."
^^^Dude, you beat me by a month. Thanks!
I once spent a half hour trying to eject a cd from a Mac before someone finally told me there's an eject button on the keyboard. I was going through all these crazy menus and preferences...
― Nate Carson, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:10 (fifteen years ago) link
I think I was like 16 or 17 when I learned that cows and bulls were the male and female versions of the same animal and not two distinct animals.What sort of seemingly basic facts did it take you a surprisingly long time for you to learn?― filthy dylan, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:30 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
What sort of seemingly basic facts did it take you a surprisingly long time for you to learn?
― filthy dylan, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:30 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― With a little bit of gold and a Peja (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:23 (fifteen years ago) link
loooool one of my friends thought this and it was since passed into running joke territory.
I think I've done that Mac eject button thing too :(
Pronounced lapels like 'labels' for years until corrected but happily don't dress well enough to use it often
― The Slash My Father Wrote (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:34 (fifteen years ago) link
My girlfriend was shocked to learn, at the age of 33, that a 'Flea Circus' is actually a rather charming mechanical toy, and is in no way operated by any parasitic insects.
― Huey in Bristol (Huey in Melbourne), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:56 (fifteen years ago) link
Ismael, at the age of 32, is shocked to learn the same thing. This thread is getting embarrassing
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:57 (fifteen years ago) link
WAT! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea_circus
― Øystein, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 12:59 (fifteen years ago) link
I thought penguins were as tall as humans until that march of the penguins movieone of my friends thought this and it was since passed into running joke territory
one of my friends thought this and it was since passed into running joke territory
no but seriously, what is this about?
― negotiable, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:01 (fifteen years ago) link
i mean i can see that there's rarely anything to size them against in the big white antarctic, but why would anyone then automatically think okay here's a bird i could play tag with
― negotiable, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:03 (fifteen years ago) link
u could still play tag w/it tho
― SNAKES! (ice crӕm), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:04 (fifteen years ago) link
But you could make the same assumption with ostriches in the big yellow desert (or wherever they live), and in that case you'd be right!
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:07 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm still in touch with several grown adults who genuinely believe there's 'something' to supernatural claims about ouija boards, despite its fairly obvious origins in parlour games / illusions which utilised the (admittedly fucking spooky) ideomotor effect.
― Huey in Bristol (Huey in Melbourne), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:08 (fifteen years ago) link
aw no-one said 'where babies come from'
― Cittaslow Mazza (blueski), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:14 (fifteen years ago) link
I've had a lot of experiences in my adult life with mispronouncing words I understood as part of written text, but hadn't heard aurally in the context of conversation etc. For example, I was well into my twenties before I knew the word "vehement" wasn't pronounced veh-hee-ment. I wish others would politely correct you when you do that instead of letting you blindly sound like an idiot.
― Sugar hiccup, Makes a pig soar and swoon (Pillbox), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:16 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm a bit like that, but now I'm in the habit of saying works incorrectly, I can't get out of it. Canal is not pronounced can-el, but there's fuck all I can do about it now.
― NotEnough, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:39 (fifteen years ago) link
^ This happens to me all the time too - so much so that I actually now find it quite amusing when I realise, midway through a sentence, that a word I've never heard before is looming at the end. I suppose that people who talk a lot, rather than reading, must find the same with spelling. It only annoys me when some moron uses it as an opportunity to score cheap points (sadly fairly often)
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I was going to start a thread like this, but it was going to be more about 'life lessons' that took you forever to learn, rather than trivia.
Anyway it's taken me this long to fully realize how unreliable first impressions can be when it comes to people.
― invisible jet (wanko ergo sum), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:42 (fifteen years ago) link
but why would anyone then automatically think okay here's a bird i could play tag with
haha
― Ant Attack.. (Ste), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 13:57 (fifteen years ago) link
TAL have an episode on this in the "best of" section on their wesite. people who thought unicorns were real, etc., lots of awkward silences at cocktail parties: good stuff.
― rent, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:00 (fifteen years ago) link
i like to tag birds. (runs)
― Sugar hiccup, Makes a pig soar and swoon (Pillbox), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:01 (fifteen years ago) link
There's a penguin here and he wants to say "you didn't touch me ner ner ner"
― Mark G, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:12 (fifteen years ago) link
I thought penguins went "weh weh weh"
― ╓abies, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:14 (fifteen years ago) link
― Huey in Bristol (Huey in Melbourne), Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
you couldnt get me in the same room as a ouija board
― a country packed with ponies (sunny successor), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:42 (fifteen years ago) link
I was about 35 when I figured out Open Sesame = Open Says Me.
― Rotgutt, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:44 (fifteen years ago) link
i used to think HAZCHEM was a foreign word for danger like Achtung
― Cittaslow Mazza (blueski), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 14:45 (fifteen years ago) link
I just figured out, like 2 days ago, that the lyrics are "highway to the danger zone"
(until then, thought they were "I went to to the danger zone")
― homosexual II, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:03 (fifteen years ago) link
ooh i like that
― Ant Attack.. (Ste), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:07 (fifteen years ago) link
lol mandee those are even better
― Uncle Shavedlongcock (max), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:22 (fifteen years ago) link
Nothing, as I'm not shockingly old.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:23 (fifteen years ago) link
Misheard lyrics are always better. The singer of my old band had this (intentionally) corny line that went "sleep all day til the telephone ring / head to the bar and shake that thing", the latter half of which I always thought was "head to the barber and shave that thing".
― monkey bonkers (╓abies), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:28 (fifteen years ago) link
My friend always thought that Op Ivy song Take Warning went "skate boarding", which is way better.
― monkey bonkers (╓abies), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Same with Sandy Shaw.
Ok I sounded this out several times in several different ways and I still don't get how this is a pun. Help?
― Kevin John Bozelka, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I think that 'Shaw' is meant to sound like 'shore' - I don't hear it either
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Sandy Shore.
― Mark G, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Shaw is pronounced exactly the same as Shore, in England.
― I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE UP TO (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:45 (fifteen years ago) link
hows it pron in USA?
― Mark G, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Well I guess it must be different, if people are having problems hearing it? Dunno.
I didn't even know it was her real name, tho.
― I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE UP TO (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:48 (fifteen years ago) link
wasn't, rather
I knew someone who, if my friend is to believed, is said to have uttered at age 18 "wait, you can't get pregnant if your clothes are on, right" while making out.
― Their time's limited, hard rocks, too (mehlt), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:51 (fifteen years ago) link
'Shore' rhymes with 'oar'. 'Shaw' is the same as the first three letters in 'shopping' xp
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:53 (fifteen years ago) link
i'm loving this thread. so many discoveries!
― baaderonixx, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:53 (fifteen years ago) link
― Øystein, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 1:59 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark
http://www.noonco.com/flea/movie.htm
My flabber hasn't been gasted quite like this in a long time :-/
― StanM, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:57 (fifteen years ago) link
xp I only got that Sandie Shaw pun because I once attended a seminar about legal practice given by an English professor who made a big thing out of the difference between 'law' and 'lore'. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 15:59 (fifteen years ago) link
Wait - how the hell DOES a candle work?!
I know, right?!!??!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:00 (fifteen years ago) link
i too only figured out lipps, inc. lately. also, fear's lee ving. it never occurred to me until i was driving in the car one day and bam.
― andrew m., Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:07 (fifteen years ago) link
I just now got Lipps, Inc. I say in my head "Lipps Incorporated" whenever I read that.
I was pretty close to thirty when I was told that "prevalent" is not pronounced pree-VAY-lent. I liked my version better. "The PREE-VAY-LENT opinion in this country is that Barack Obama will be a force of change."
― ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:18 (fifteen years ago) link
I didn't realize until sometime in my sophomore year of high school that being forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson (Focus on the Family) every morning on the way to school was completely fucked up. My dad used to drive me to school everyday for years, and that shit was always on the radio.
― z "R" s (Z S), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:25 (fifteen years ago) link
"i used to think HAZCHEM was a foreign word for danger like Achtung
― Cittaslow Mazza (blueski), Wednesday, 12 November 2008"
haha yes, i thought it must be turkish
― Shacknasty (Frogman Henry), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:30 (fifteen years ago) link
I was pretty close to thirty when I was told that "prevalent" is not pronounced pree-VAY-lent.
probably some slippage with "prevailing" no?
― rent, Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:37 (fifteen years ago) link
I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, probably.
― ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ ⊂⊃ (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 12 November 2008 16:38 (fifteen years ago) link
The use of the word piracy to copy someone’s work goes back to the 17th century.
― Dan Worsley, Friday, 12 April 2024 21:11 (three weeks ago) link
When I heard the phrase I assumed the phrase referred to the school year: “a teacher dates a student over the summer holiday”, for exampleI did not realize that it referred to the months of the year as a metaphor for the stages in one’s life
I did not realize that it referred to the months of the year as a metaphor for the stages in one’s life
tbf the song’s lyrics deliberately touch on both these meanings.. “oh the days dwindle down, to a precious few” etc. As in, a time-bound relationship
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 13 April 2024 01:07 (three weeks ago) link
that the buffalo bills are named after buffalo bill i guess??
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 13 April 2024 02:01 (three weeks ago) link
Not the Silence of the Lambs guy, tho.
― nickn, Saturday, 13 April 2024 02:41 (three weeks ago) link
either that or their mascot should be a duck
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 13 April 2024 04:34 (three weeks ago) link
With spicy wings!
― nickn, Saturday, 13 April 2024 04:45 (three weeks ago) link
Sister Lovers was him and abandmate dating a pair of sisters though it sounds like it should be a poetic allusion dunnit?
It is also a quote from David Crosby's "Triad".
The "months as life-stages" trope seems to cast aside January, February and March. I can do without them myself but it makes for an inconsistent metaphor.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 14 April 2024 02:26 (three weeks ago) link
it was only today that it dawned on me that for years, I'd been reading the thread title "Every huge artist has their "New Jersey"" as "Every huge artist has their "Nebraska"" and now that thread finally makes more sense. I have no idea why my brain confused these states.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Tuesday, 16 April 2024 00:21 (three weeks ago) link
They're the only two states that appear in Bruce Springsteen album titles.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 16 April 2024 21:01 (three weeks ago) link
Is that so.
https://i.imgur.com/RLCFyjB.jpeg
― pplains, Wednesday, 17 April 2024 03:09 (three weeks ago) link
The resolute desk in the White House is called that not because it’s where presidents sit while being purposeful and determined. It was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute.
― Requiem for a Dream: The Musical! (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 20 April 2024 13:48 (two weeks ago) link
that’s actually pretty cool. i always thought it was because it was as big and sturdy as a ship not cause it was built from one
― schrodingers cat was always cool (Hunt3r), Saturday, 20 April 2024 14:47 (two weeks ago) link
I had no idea either. Some interesting history (on both)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_deskhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Resolute_(1850)
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 22 April 2024 22:14 (two weeks ago) link
TIL: four nuclear missiles were detonated during the Cuban Missile Crisis - two by the U.S. and two by the Soviet Union. Doing this during DEFCON 2 conditions seems like a bad idea and I'm kinda shocked that we're all still here.
― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 04:12 (two weeks ago) link
Ned Ludd was actually a folkloric figure whose name was appropriated by the Luddite movement several decades after he (or the person/people he was based on) lived. I'd always assumed he was the leader of a social movement! Shows you how much I know about British industrial history.
― a fatal dose of irony (Matt #2), Sunday, 28 April 2024 14:38 (one week ago) link
Wow, I just realised that “cuckold” and “cuckoo” are part of the same concept. I had thought the former was just infidelity, or maybe it’s come to mean that.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 30 April 2024 19:18 (one week ago) link
cuckoos notoriously leave their eggs in other birds nests for them to rear or that was the myth anyway. So I can see why it would tie in with the idea of cuckold though I thought cuckold was the passive role possibly victim. Though the understanding all seems to deny free will on the wife/female role in the situation.
― Stevo, Wednesday, 1 May 2024 10:25 (one week ago) link
i was thinking it must at least go back to Molière, but a quick check at wiktionary shows a quote a hundred years earlier from Rabelais. but i think you're otm about laying eggs in another's nest
― budo jeru, Wednesday, 1 May 2024 15:11 (one week ago) link
Basically all of Western Europe is on the same time zone. Except for Portugal and the UK, if the UK counts as "europe" and not "the hell islands".
― Kate (rushomancy), Wednesday, 1 May 2024 15:30 (one week ago) link
... and Ireland.
― I've left the box of soup near your shoes (Tom D.), Wednesday, 1 May 2024 15:43 (one week ago) link
xp European cuckoos do this. American cuckoos raise their own young.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Wednesday, 1 May 2024 17:03 (one week ago) link
xp and Iceland
― Colonel Poo, Wednesday, 1 May 2024 17:24 (one week ago) link
"trailblazing" has the literal meaning of marking trees to create a path. i always imagined someone running and leaving fire behind them.
― adam t. (abanana), Thursday, 2 May 2024 15:20 (one week ago) link
... and Ireland.― I've left the box of soup near your shoes (Tom D.)
― I've left the box of soup near your shoes (Tom D.)
your country is basically fine but tainted by proximity to The Worst Country
kind of like canada
― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, 2 May 2024 15:34 (one week ago) link
Cardiff has only been the capital city of Wales since 1955. Wales had never had a capital city prior to 1955(!) and Cardiff, Caernarvon and Aberystwyth were all in contention.It was never even formally announced...
On 20 December 1955, Gwilym Lloyd-George, then Minister for Welsh Affairs and Home Secretary, proclaimed that Cardiff was the capital of Wales, in a reply to a Parliamentary question from David Llewellyn. Lloyd-George said that "no formal measures are necessary to give effect to this decision"[14]
― I've left the box of soup near your shoes (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 14:38 (two days ago) link
haha wtf
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 7 May 2024 15:38 (two days ago) link