Things you were shockingly old when you learned

zombie-like meat puppets without souls

Ah, so you've met my kids?

the gestation takes place inside the fertilized egg

wait until you learn human women do eject an unfertilized egg every once in a while

Was gonna say...

lmao

In their natural environment chickens will typically lay 12 or so eggs a year, too. We've bred them to be egg laying machines.

What happened to the enormous horse planned for the English side?

― koogs, Tuesday, 19 November 2019 18:53 (yesterday)

Officially "on hold" due to lack of funds IIRC - it was to be funded by subscription, the estimated costs rocketed and the donations / subscriptions did not. Shame.

People actually experimented on the veracity of the boiling a frog myth/metaphor. Seems to have been done several times over the last couple of hundred years.
Apparently a frog tossed into a boiling pot will have a lot of damage done whereas one put into a tepid one that is slowly heated is likely to jump out way before the heat gets too high.
Whodathunkit.
Works as a metaphor though & a lot of those have a recognised gulf between saying and reality.

I have found out why 'Strictly Come Dancing' is called that and it's gone from being a slightly stupid name to a really fucking stupid name

Strictly Ballroom reference? I don't really get how it works. We were having a similar conversation just now too.

The title is an amalgamation of the titles of the 1992 Australian film Strictly Ballroom and Come Dancing

yeah I get that, just not why they've combined them like that. loads of viewers surely don't know one or either of the original shows.

Yes, exactly - it doesn't even amount to a shit pun, it's not even up to the standard of a working title, why would they go for that?

Anyway, people apparently watch it and like it, really not for me. I went and looked at some Come Dancing from the 80s and, well, also very much not for me.

strictly dance cumming

if alan cumming then sure

It was only in the last month that I, after like 20 years, realized the “faster” in “Faster Pussycat! Kill, Kill” literally means faster, as in “go more quickly,” as is not some nonsensical description or first-name, as I’d always thought.

ed.b!!!! an ilxor of yore but still posting. that gives me hope

Ritalin is named after a Rita.

^same

micharlin, barbaralin, lauralin: would have figured it out.

When people from the US talk about 'oatmeal' they're actually just talking about plain old porridge. Who knew?

(everyone knew)

I didn't.

Let's not even get into what they call biscuits and/or gravy.

we call it "truck stop delight"

that's dog-food innit?

also 'flapjack' meaning 'pancake' and flapjacks not having another name because they don't exist there

we call those the "devil's crepes"

Faps are apparently good though, Jack.

Can't stop jacking those flaps!

I'm sure when my wife and I first got together there must've been some hilarious misunderstandings around flapjacks, but I don't remember ever knowing they were pancakes in the US before

I was managing a team in China in about 2014: three Americans, two British, one Australian and four Chinese. Two of the Americans (both African-American, one from NY and one from Louisiana) used to spend their time reminiscing about old episodes of Keeping Up Appearances. The British and Australians had never even heard of the show, and were really very confused indeed by their imitations of Hyacinth Bucket.

this is apropos of nothing of course, just a very odd memory

God couldn't watch that cos hyacinth is such a racist. So maybe the added distance added irony or something.
Couldn't really watch pathos at the time though.
Wonder if there is something to the show beyond discomfort. I think a french friend of mine loved it at the time it was current too.

it was one of those sitcoms where every episode seems to have the same plot and jokes, but they actually had favourite episodes, wonder if it was some kind of elaborate joke.

Btw Americans have a specific food called pudding and do not use it in the generic sense for dessert foods.

is it blood sausage

is it suet cake

Wait, what are "oatmeal" and "flapjacks" in the UK? I would never say "flapjack" and don't think I personally know anyone who does but I do understand it to mean "pancake".

https://bakingwithgranny.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/flapjack.jpg

Look at them glisten, num num

I would never say "flapjack" and don't think I personally know anyone who does but I do understand it to mean "pancake".

Wait don't you have any friends who are characters in an O. Henry story?

American pudding

https://thepioneerwoman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/how-to-make-chocolate-pudding-00a.jpg

Stay away from mee-hee

Hm, acc. to my dictionary, this also means that Americans don't say "porridge"? I think it seems m/l interchangeable with "oatmeal" to me. I'm more likely to say "oatmeal"; the missus (who grew up in the same city) is a little more likely to say "porridge" ime.

nope, ime americans do not use the term "porridge" unless they are talking about goldilocks & the bears

and even then they probably don't know they are referring to bowls of oatmeal

i thought porridge was the same as gruel until i visited the UK!

& tbh idk what gruel actually is

porridge is nice, for bears, gruel is bad, for poor children

I thought johnnycakes were pancakes but are actually cornmeal cakes.

Ha, "gruau" is what I call oatmeal/porridge when speaking French so I think I just figured "gruel" was an older word for the same thing. It's something more thin and meagre? 3xp lol

porridge is definitely not oatmeal, oatmeal is real, porridge is a nice bear dream