Things you were shockingly old when you learned

1990s acoustic ska act Venice Shoreline Chris was a pun on Venice Shoreline Crips.

We really need a "today I learned" thread as well as this one, FFS.

it's certainly more accurate than "shockingly old"

You learn something new every day...so what have you learnt today?

A commonly-repeated anecdote claims that the name is derived from an occasion when King James I of England, while being entertained at Hoghton Tower during his return from Scotland in 1617, was so impressed by the quality of his steak that he knighted the loin of beef, which was referred to thereafter as "Sir loin".

Arnold Deutsch, the top Soviet spy recruiter in 30's/40's London had a cousin called Oscar who started a highly successful UK cinema chain with the acronym business title of "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation".

The original Odeons were the popular amphitheatres of ancient Greece. The name Odeon had been appropriated by cinemas in France and Italy in the 1920s, but Deutsch made it his own in the UK. His publicity team claimed Odeon stood for "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation".

I knew that, but more impressed that he was first cous with a top Soviet spymaster!

turns out the original ferris wheel had nothing to do with ferric oxide and was just built by a bloke called george ferris

William Shatner and Leonard Cohen were distantly related

misread that as Leonard Nimoy and thought well *that* adds to the ickiness of slash fiction

Bob Fosse and Paddy Chayefsky (and presumably their egos) were good friends.

Donald Glover and Childish Gambino are the same person.

also Teddy Perkins

the differences between homonyms, homophones, and homographs

That there's apparently a cosmetic process that extracts fat from a patient's behind and injects it into their face.
Or that somebody would be willing to go through that process.
though I guess Botox isn't much more pleasant.

Just reading a book on the cosmetic surgery industry that mentions it.
Might just prefer to hear it was a hoax,

there are polar bears in russia. i mean, if you'd asked me i'da said, 'erm, well i suppose there MUST be, but i never heard of em?'

I just realized that "about 50 years ago" can no longer really plausibly be referring to, say, 1945, or even 1955.

Yeah, someone I know had his 50th last month and the Facebook image was the cover of the LOEG 1969 issue, gave me some stares.

there are polar bears in russia. i mean, if you'd asked me i'da said, 'erm, well i suppose there MUST be, but i never heard of em?'

― Hunt3r, Friday, March 8, 2019 4:30 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was going to say that there were penguins in South Africa when i read that . Think I had to get off the bus or something so didn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_penguin

and then there was always this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4&list=PLF388BB8ED67CA5D6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4&list=PLF388BB8ED67CA5D6

well just found out taht not all youtube videos work innit.

... tell me about it.

I just realized that "about 50 years ago" can no longer really plausibly be referring to, say, 1945, or even 1955.

This old guy I know on Facebook posted a #throwbackthursday family portrait from 1979. Total Sears studio thing with forest background, Dad with the sideburns, daughters with the swishy bangs, dork son with a moptop.

And it didn't dawn on me until I saw it again later that the old guy was the dork son in the photo, not the Dad (who he really looks like now, minus the sideburns.)

Fifty years ago I was in high school and it was nothing like 1945 or 1950!

how would you know though

Different soundtrack.

I just haven’t updated my concept of what “50 years ago” is since I was a child I think. Until like today.

I have only this evening realised that Count Von Count has a beard and it is blowing my mind and I definitely think it deserves to be on this thread.

I've only just realised that there are two separate bad pirate ladies on Swashbuckle (cbeebies). Captain Sinker apparently left and was replaced by Captain Captain.

This isn’t something I only learned recently but for many years I didn’t realise that a coffee enema was an actual procedure, when people referred to it I assumed they were making a humorous reference to the laxative effects of coffee

xp to the horror of my wife I quite fancy Jennie Dale aka Captain Captain

I have only just figured out (well I was shown) how to write a 9 so it doesn't look like a 4.

*posties everywhere breathe a sigh of relief*

I still have never learned how to hold a writing instrument 'properly' so I will probably be shockingly old when/if that ever happens. I write longhand constantly with no ill effect, though, which seems to put paid to the entreaties of my frustrated teachers and parents. Nyah.

lol CAL

I still have never learned how to hold a writing instrument 'properly' so I will probably be shockingly old when/if that ever happens. I write longhand constantly with no ill effect, though, which seems to put paid to the entreaties of my frustrated teachers and parents. Nyah.

I can completely relate! I never learned to grip the way you're supposed to with "a writing instrument" so I feel like that probably makes writing a more difficult proposition than it should be, but it's too late for me to break myself of the old habit so if I ever do, it'll probably be when I'm close to death. Also, I attended Catholic schools so I KNOW they paid extra special attention to the way we wrote (hell, we got marks for penmanship all the way through the end of grade school, i.e. until the end of the 8th grade!) and no one bothered to correct me, so I guess I was doing a good enough job as it was.

Anyway, new thing I have only just been corrected on (and this is timely for today): I learned the Irish stepped in to help Mexico out with the Mexican-American war, NOT the war for Mexican independence from Spain as I'd previously thought! I feel like an idiot because I parroted the latter misconception to my Mexican-born aunt a few months back as if it were true and she didn't correct me. I really should have known this because of my late mom's extreme pro-Mexican cheerleading and my late dad's having had an Irish grandmother (which I've already mentioned), but nope, took me THIS long to have had corrected, d'oh!

Playtex made astronaut suits: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-did-playtex-have-to-do-with-neil-armstrong-16588944/#zCMhFpR7AyUEmUBy.99

(which I learned because of this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/science/female-spacewalk-canceled.html)

Cross your heart, hope not to die

that eggs are not dairy

?!

Expand on that, flappy

I want to believe

Eggs aren't dairy.

Dairy = milk derived.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/are-eggs-dairy

is this one for the American things thread?

i think this is a regional thing... i've met people who consider "dairy" to include eggs.

those people are wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_product

I used to consider eggs to be part of dairy, because of the 4 food groups. and because of supermarket shelves. doesn't make it so!

dairy is made from milk

do the egg-dair ppl think eggs are elaborately whipped milk

wait, this is the Easter lobby’s fault, isn’t it

Eggs are dairy, but fish isn't meat. Ok.

Eggs are a kind of meat